Review in a Hurry: Wooee, dogies! Hang up your disbelief right next to your cowboy hat or else the ridiculous pretense of this wholesome, Hollywood-meets-hayseeds flick just might make you spit on your whittlin'.
The Bigger Picture: For years, nobody has managed to figure out that teen supersinger Hannah Montana is really just a normal country girl named Miley Stewart—disguised in a blond Hedwig hairpiece and some go-go boots. Sure, both girls have voices like a Reno barfly, and they share the exact same overlapping squirrel teeth—similarities that you'd think an obsessed tween would notice in the time it takes to upload side-by-side photos on Flickr. But the wig—the wig! It's the hairpiece that fools the planet, a device that allows the fictional Miley to have the "best of both worlds," a booming career and a normal life.
Or not so normal. In this big-screen musical adaptation of the hit Disney TV show, Stewart (Miley Cyrus) has gone a bit too Hollywood for her daddy's liking. After Miley gets into a fight with an overacting Tyra Banks over a pair of shoes, the girl is tricked by daddy Robby Ray (real-life dad Billy Ray Cyrus) into cooling her heels back home in Tennessee for a few weeks. There, Miley will accompany her mee-maw to the farmers market, gaze wistfully as the local folks pick their guitars on the front porch and flirt with a clean-cut local cowyouth. No one is ever seen watching TV or fiddling with the Intertubes. That would be not wholesome.
The whole thing comes to a climax when Stewart's double life seems finally doomed to unravel forever, thanks in part to a stock gossip-reporter character who catches wind of Hannah's big secret. Parents will find their suspension of disbelief stretched thinner than a beanpole at the movie's climax, though the kiddie target audience will likely walk away enchanted by the overall message of hometown goodwill.
The 180—a Second Opinion: Cyrus does not skimp on quality, delivering well-produced original songs and a knockout dance number, while director Peter Chelsom's on-location shooting is gorgeous.
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