Prom Pact
Disney+Prom Pact is the newest in a long line of cliché ridden high school rom-coms aimed at a pre-teen audience. Surprisingly, it isn't completely terrible. Yes, It's exactly what you expect. Yes, It is predictable from beginning to end. And, yes, the lead actress, who does a genuinely excellent job, is given some of the worst writing in the entire film. But, none of that really matters too much. This movie does an extremely admirable job of keeping its genuine sincerity and love for the films that have come before it on its sleeves. This is mostly for the better, but can also definitely be for the worst.
First off, Peyton Elizabeth Lee playing Mandy Yang, really gives it her all. She is a rising talent worth looking out for, and even with her terrible dialogue and character arc, she steals every scene she is in based on pure charisma and screen presence alone. Then, of course, there's Milo Manheim playing her best friend Ben. They have a really nice platonic relationship leading to some of the only real emotions playing throughout the film. He does his best and could certainly pop up in some things in the near future. Everyone else is just a Disney-level stereotype making their way through high school. Blake Draper is the biggest culprit, and victim, of this. The jock with a heart of gold is eye-rolling, to say the least, and while that isn't his fault, unfortunately, no one could've saved that character from the depths of cheesy high-school movie history.
As a film, everything is done relatively well with nothing, from a technical standpoint, being good, bad, or really anywhere in between. The film moves briskly by as if it were a poorly structured sitcom, and that's all there really is to say about it. The camera lands on the characters' faces and shows them making movements. This won't win any awards in the coming years, but it never really had to. It needed to be a fairly innocent portrayal of high-school life for kids, with just enough edgy sex jokes to keep the slightly older crowd a bit more entertained.
There's nothing inherently wrong with being inoffensive schlock for a pre-teen audience, and seeing the massive amounts of representation put in this film was a delight, but this is really built for a certain audience and gives them exactly what they deserve. In the end, Prom Pact is the movie that it set out to be and that isn't necessarily a bad thing.