Hannah Montana: The Movie (U)

IF I was a teenage girl (and one look at me will tell you I’m not) then I might be adding another couple of stars to the rating.

Miley Cyrus has her fans through Disney Channel show Hannah Montana – witness the scenes of admirers at the London premiere and the film taking the top spot in the US film charts.

Everyone else may be bemused as to what all the fuss is about. British director Peter Chelsom, whose cv includes Hear My Song and Shall We Dance?, ticks all the required boxes with this happy ending musical. Miley plays Miley Stewart, who’s a secret pop star. She has only to put on a blonde wig to fool everyone she’s all-singing, alldancing, all-round-good-girl Hannah Montana.

“She has the best of both worlds, now she has to choose just one,” runs the tagline on the film poster.

Take the money and run is my advice. Fame is going to Hannah’s head so her father (Billy Ray Cyrus, Miley’s real life dad) takes her home to Tennessee for a dose of reality. Miley finds romance with a young lad in a big hat, learns the importance of family, and gets to sing 13 songs and musical numbers of the kind that are infectious in a measles sort of way. At the screening I attended, the effect was to send adults in the audience in search of alcoholic relief after all the sugary sweet, whiter-than-white activities of Hannah. The only bit of excitement comes in a fight with Tyra Banks over a pair of shoes. It’s easy – very easy – to be cynical and snide about Hannah Montana which resembles one of those old Disney movies from 40 years ago.