Bandslam Critic Reviews

High school musicals have their scrappiest number in Bandslam, an awkward, earnest, almost irresistible indie.Read the full review

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 the full review

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 the full review

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 the full review

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 the full review

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 the full review

Buoyant, gratifying and, yes, rocking.Read the full review

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 the full review

A pretty good movie given that the odds of it having been a pretty bad movie were steep.Read the full review