The Hannah Montana Movie: Movie Review 

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Hannah Montana: The Movie

Rating: 7/10

Cast: Miley Cyrus, Billy Ray Cyrus, Emily Osment, Lucas Till, Vanessa Williams

Director: Peter Chelsom

Finally, the Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus phenomenon has hit New Zealand.

Dragging my unsuspecting (male) workmate along to the premiere, we walked into the cinema foyer only to be met by a girls dance troop, two boys strumming guitars on hay bales, and a group of 6-9 year old girls screaming "WE LOVE HANNAH MONTANA" into the lens of a video camera for an enthusiastic film crew.

Quite.

For those of you a beat behind the latest tween sensation here are the cliff notes.

Miley Stewart (Miley Cyrus) is a regular teen who just happens to have a secret identity - Hannah Montana, the most famous pop star on earth. Miley keeps her alter ego a secret by donning an impenetrable disguise when performing - a blonde wig and a pair of hoops.

In Hannah Montana: The Movie, Miley/Hannah has difficulty handling her fame and begins to act like a diva, forgetting her family values and southern roots. In order to stop her transformation into an LA princess, her father (Billy Ray Cyrus) takes her home to Crowley Corners, a small town in Tennessee, where she gets a dose of reality and begins to reconnect with what's really important in life.

The film is a good one for its genre. While it's no High School Musical, it definitely has more get up and go than Camp Rock, which will be a relief for those of you who've already sat through Camp Rock.

The storyline is predictable (how will the town raise enough money to stop the evil developers? If only there was a wildly successful pop star who could throw a benefit concert to raise funds...) and has several loose threads at the end, but to be honest the kids didn't seem to notice, so who am I to point them out?

Adding to the star power are Tyra Banks and Vanessa Williams, who both cameo in the movie- Banks pulls out her fierce facials for a fight scene while Williams struts her stuff as a pushy publicist.

However, the cameo that got all the kids whispering was by up-and-coming country superstar Taylor Swift - a good friend of Cyrus' who recently sang with her at the 2009 Country Music Awards.

The kids in the audience definitely loved the movie - there was dancing in the aisles, and a lot of concert arm waving. My workmate got his phone out and waved it in the air at one point, but I think he was joking.

All in all it's a bundle of catchy tunes and slapstick humour with the requisite Disney morals pushed home. On the plus side, your kids will love it. On the minus side, Hannah Montana gets compared to the Beatles.

But what's a little blasphemy amongst friends?

CHECK OUT THE HANNAH MONTANA MOVIE TRAILER HERE!

And watch the Miley Cyrus interview on Close Up AND check out some extra footage from Dominic Bowden's interview