LA TIMES HSM2 REVIEW- PART2

The big winners in the sequel are Tisdale and Efron. Tisdale is clearly having more fun than a thin blond should be allowed to have in public, vamping it up in her Fergie-like salute to summer -- "Fabulous" -- as well as her Britneyesque rendition of the song Kelsi wrote (sniff) for Gabriella and Troy, "You Are the Music in Me."Does she overact? You bet. But since Sharpay is the closest thing the "High School Musical" Weltanschauung has to a villain, that's part of the job, along with flouncing, hair-flipping, eye-narrowing and shrieking. Efron, meanwhile, brings more emotional heft to Troy than was evidenced in "HSM." The dilemma he faces -- whether to follow his ambitions at the cost of his friends -- is also more adult. Still, he gets several chances to show off his well-sculpted self on the basketball court and a pretty terrific solo -- "Bet On It." Singing and dancing through his confusion and into our hearts on a golf green. Efron has all the handsome enthusiasm and grace of an old-fashioned movie musical star.The rest of the cast is as it ever was. Hudgens is lovely to look at and listen to (if a trifle nasal), though she apparently still can't dance. As Chad, Bleu needs to work on the nuances of anger (the stare-down scene between Chad and Troy borders on camp), but he's young yet. And look as fabulous on a baseball diamond as on the basketball court. Kelsi remains Most Likely to Win a Tony, but alas, she still has to wear those silly hats. As does Ryan, though he finally steps from under Sharpay's shadow. The third "High School Musical" will be a feature film, so perhaps it is not too much to hope that as today's tweens and teens enter their 20s, they will bring the lessons they have learned at East High with them: Be true to yourself, be true to your friends and, at the least provocation, break into song and dance.