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Bandslam
EMAILPRINTSummit Entertainment
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 20 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 17 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Drama
Written by:
Josh A. Cagan
Todd Graff
Directed by: Todd Graff
Release Date:
Theatrical: August 14, 2009
Running Time: 111 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG for some thematic elements and mild language
Starring Alyson Michalka, Vanessa Hudgens, Gaelen Connell, and Lisa Kudrow
When gifted singer-songwriter Charlotte Barnes asks new kid in town Will Burton to manage her fledgling rock band, she appears to have just one goal in mind: go head-to-head against her egotistical musician ex-boyfriend, Ben, at the biggest event of the year, a battle of the bands. Against all odds, their band develops a sound all its own with a real shot at success in the contest. Meanwhile, romance brews between Will and Sa5m, who plays a mean guitar and has a voice to die for. When disaster strikes, it's time for the band to make a choice: Do they admit defeat, or face the music and stand up for what they believe in? (Summit Entertainment)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen
Had Cameron Crowe and the late John Hughes collaborated on a movie populated by Disney Channel superstars, the result might have looked and sounded a lot like Todd Graff's Bandslam. And that's meant as a compliment.
Read Full Review >Variety Rob Nelson
High school musicals have their scrappiest number in Bandslam, an awkward, earnest, almost irresistible indie.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ruth McCann
the script's earnest intelligence and the actors' charm (Connell, Hudgens and Kudrow are especially fun to watch) make this film an entertaining ode to teenage joie de vivre.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Here’s the surprise: Bandslam may come from synthetic materials, but the characters are a little more complicated than usual.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Misfit teens in the process of forming a high school band learn life lessons and raise their goblets of rock. But there's enough of a strong filmmaking backbeat in Bandslam to carry the movie's light tune.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
This isn’t a breakthrough movie, but for what it is, it’s charming, and not any more innocuous than it has to be.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Bandslam is “Camp’’ with rock ’n’ roll instead of show tunes, but its roots go back to the Busby Berkeley backstagers and Mickey-and-Judy let’s-put-on-a-show musicals of the 1930s.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
The late John Hughes would have liked Bandslam, an upbeat high school musical that plays like a garage-band cover of "The Breakfast Club."
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
Best of all is newcomer Connell, the kind of charismatic kid who would have been cast in "Freaks and Geeks" ten years ago.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Nicholas Rapold
Todd Graff's film is written with a desperate cleverness that clamors for attention over the brainless against-the-odds music-competition plot.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
Bandslam belongs to Connell. He has the unruly 'fro and endearing shamblingness of a young Daniel Stern, and he ably brings to life that rarest of cinematic qualities: decency.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
Throughout its first two acts, Bandslam is charming, sweet, and funny enough to merit inclusion in the upper echelon of teen comedies. Then comes a third act weighed down with arbitrary romantic conflicts, leaden melodrama, and a tiresome subplot.
Read Full Review >NPR Scott Tobias
Bandslam works best when it's focused on young, adorably neurotic creative types putting on a show.
Read Full Review >St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams
Two incompatible movies duke it out in Bandslam. Although it's the wimpy teen musical that prevails, it's the misfit coming-of-age story that leaves an impression.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jennie Punter
Lack of sparkling teen chatter prevent this movie from being a slam dunk.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
The performances in Bandslam are uniformly strong -- good enough to make you wish this bunch of charismatic, talented kids had been given better material.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 5.7 (out of 10) based on 17 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
bob v gave it an8:
Ya the ending song set up should have been stronger but very funny in parts and flowed well into different modes of real life teen feelings. I know that taking my 16 year old who thought it was the summers best movie. Maybe best to not have it in high school but on the street to shed the old mattra.
Karen gave it a10:
An amazingly and wonderfully directed movie with great humour and music. The cast have performed so well and fulfilled their characters perfectly. Cannot wait to get to see it again. Truly recommended, you do not want to miss such a great movie.
Chris J. gave it a5:
A pleasant surprise? Not too pleasant, of course, it's typical teen fare. At least it's short and it's got a few good tunes.
Xavier E. gave it a10:
A funny, emotional and very enjoyable film!
Melodi M. gave it a10:
I thought this move was great!!! A movie every generation will love!!!! I not only thought best kid film of the yea, but easily one of my favorites of the year.
Chad S. gave it a9:
The fact that "Bandslam" rocks at all is a miracle, but it does, in spite of its need to corner the teen girls market. It's a charming indie that allow itself to be hijacked by a Disney sensibility, culminating in the decidedly unrocking song that Can't Go On, I Will Go On plays at the Bandslam competition. It sounds completely dislocated from the sort of music that Will(Gaelen Connell) would endorse. The movie feels compromised, as if a deal was struck. In exchange for a wider release, the songs had to suck. The songs don't always suck though, and that's the tragedy of it all. If the filmmaker stayed true to his indie roots(he has the cred; he made "Camp"), the Sa5m-led nonet(a 9-piece band) would have tried to top the truly galvanizing indie-rocker which Charlotte(Alyson Michalka), the head cheerleader gone riot grrl, fronts after Will assembles the band in its most indelible incarnation. Musically, that was the film's last hurrah. To win the competition, the band's brainchild tells Charlotte they need to find the right song. What the pom-pom girl comes back to Will with seems straight out of "High School Musical", but he loves it, inexplicably, a song that no respectable David Bowie devotee would ever own up to loving. Although the music stops making sense, "Bandslam" survives the encroaching blandness of market-driven teen pop, because the three principal leads never stop making sense. "Bandslam" plays like a loving tribute to John Hughes' "The Breakfast Club", in which the utopia created in that library, lives on through the next day in the school hallways and beyond. In "Bandslam", the cheerleader and the nerd become friends. (Vanessa Hudgens could be an update of the Ally Sheedy character.) What if Claire(Molly Ringwald) didn't forget about Brian(Anthony Michael Hall)? Like the beloved 1985 film, Charlotte tells Will that their friendship is an experiment, but unlike that classic of the teen movie genre, it never panders. And still, "Bandslam" is an enormously appealing "let's put on a show" sort of movie that actually feels, to quote another Simple Minds song, "alive and kicking".
