I had a long day at school today—not bad, just long. I got there at 6:45am and didn’t leave until 5:00pm, after my students’ first choir rehearsal of the year. I got home and was absolutely spent. All I wanted to do was sit, eat, and turn my brain off, and Camp Rock 3—which I had been meaning to watch—appeared as if it would fit into that plan pretty well. It was certainly a turn-your-brain-off kind of movie, but I would have much rather turned the TV off. It’s too bad that I’m such a dedicated movie reviewer.

I watched the first two Camp Rock movies before this, and while neither one of them was that good watching as an adult, Camp Rock 3 was unbearable. I really hope that this movie wasn’t indicative of the current state of the Disney Channel that I grew up loving, because from its opening scene, it was cringe city. From Sage’s corny lines and hopeful staring out of windows to the embarrassing caricatures of young musicians (this guy likes to hit stuff with his drumsticks! This girl plays classical music—Ew!), everything about Camp Rock 3 made me want to gauge my eyes out. The story didn’t get much better; the writers seemed to think that simply telling the audience about all these characters’ pasts would suffice when it came time for the emotional payoff, but by not showing me anything meaningful, I was predictably uninvested in anyone by the time the writers needed me to be.

I was hoping that, while fighting against a terrible story, the music could at least be serviceable. “Serviceable” may be the most accurate descriptor; none of the *new* songs were that great, though there were occasionally good parts. “Tomorrow” was the most complete song, and “Echo” got to somewhere good, but it unfortunately started with that awful “We’re the kids of Camp Rock!” chant. Take a second and notice how earlier I emphasized *new* earlier. Two-thirds of this movie’s soundtrack was songs from the old Camp Rocks! What gives? I can watch a soulless movie and I can watch a cheap movie, but I won’t stand for a movie that’s both. Also, I mentioned it briefly earlier, but what was it all the anti-classical music propaganda? I can’t have my students watch this movie when I’m actively trying to get them interested in other genres, including (and especially) classical music.

Camp Rock 3 wasn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen, and it wasn’t the worst movie I’ve seen this year. I like the Jonas Brothers—even if they’re bad actors—and I liked the Demi Lovato cameo, but Camp Rock 3 added nothing new to the canon and even repeated a ton of beats. There was a moment near the end where I saw what this movie could have been—Mitchie looked at Sage in a “changing of the Disney Channel guard” sort of way that could’ve been effective if the movie had been utilized as such—but alas. It’s in times like these that I’m so grateful for my affinity for Lemonade Mouth and Teen Beach Movie over Camp Rock. I don’t know how I would have felt watching Disney massacre my boy if I had been a Camp Rock die-hard.