One consequence of Disney owning just about everything these days, combined with Disney+ existing also is that I’m doing a lot of Disney reviews. And whilst the summer hiatus is gonna be dedicated to something a little different, I’ll be looking at Disney remakes in the fall, so this pattern isn’t likely to change, either.
But a few weeks back I reviewed Teen Beach Movie, a kinda self-aware teen musical featuring Ross Lynch and Maia Mitchell as teen sweethearts Brady and Mack. It was one of Disney Channel’s more popular outings so naturally a sequel was greenlit, released in 2015, 2 years after the previous one, this important for something I’m gonna come back to in the review.
When it comes to writing, Robert Horn is the only one returning, co-writing the story with Dan Berendsen, who had worked on other Disney Channel films including the Camp Rock sequel, whilst the screenplay was written by Matt and Billy Eddy, both of whom have very limited experience, Matt had worked on the 101 Dalmatians Cartoon in the 90s but Billy’s resume only really includes Invisible Sister, which Matt had worked on as well.
On the plus side, Jeffrey Hornaday has returned as director. So, what happens in this movie that pushes it into the bad category? let’s dive in and find out.
The first problem becomes apparently pretty early on, they’re on the last day of summer, 3 months since they met, being generous, that means it’s only supposed to have been a few weeks since the previous film, given that Mack was supposed to be heading off to start school elsewhere during that film. But it’s been around 2 years for the actors, and it shows. Mack and Brady are both taller and Brady’s hair has longer and shaggier. Most sequels featuring young actors avoid this being a continuity issue by time-jumping a year or so ahead, it’s a sizeable oversight.
And honestly, it’s even more-so a problem with the Wet Side Story cast, who aren’t supposed to have changed at all but obviously look older because they are. It’s difficult to see what they could’ve done about this, but in the spirit of being self-aware, maybe they could’ve acknowledged it. But to the plot, Brady has decided to celebrate his 3-month anniversary with Mack by somehow fitting lights to the cove in which she met.
Brady was sitting watching Wet Side Story, because his life outside of surfing revolves around literally nothing else, when he came by Mack, he asked her to watch it with her, making a bet for a Mango Smoothie that she’d enjoy it. Given how we know she responded, hope she enjoyed that smoothie. Brady has set up a projector, because he has one of those now, to show the song ‘Best Summer Ever’ from Wet Side Story.
The Song isn’t too bad but a couple of notes, presuming this is supposedly the final song of the film, and those usually have some level of thematic reference, this feels a little out of place in the context what Wet Side Story was about. Yes, this was the Best Summer ever, we fought over a bar, until we got a star-crossed romance and had to unite to face a villain with a weather machine. Second and this got distracting, the projector is at ground level and Mack are Brady are dancing in front of the screen, why aren’t they casting shadows?! Also, one of the extras got a bucket of water tossed on his head and stayed wet in the next shot, keep your inconsistencies consistent, movie!
The two surf for a while, Mack losing the necklace Lela gave to her in the last film, but Mack says she has loads to do before school starts in the morning. Given that it’s pitch-dark and presumably around September, I’d hope the only thing you’d have to do before school is sleep. There’s a worry that they might be different people at school and have trouble with their relationship, guess what’s going to happen.
So it’s back to school day and we’re introduced to Brady’s friend, Devon and Mack’s friend, Alyssa, they do next to nothing in the entire film so you can forget about them now. Mack’s set up a new Ocean club, on the first day back before school has even started and is setting up a save the beach dance. Her motivation her is that since she said no to the prep school, she’s gonna use her senior year to do everything she wanted to do.
The downside of this is she doesn’t have a lot of time to surf, much to Brady’s disdain. There’s a College Fair, again, on the first day back, that day that Mack wants to attend, and asks Brady to come with her. They have a chemistry class that doesn’t seem to have a teacher as the class just starts mixing random chemicals together. A guy named Spencer shares his interests with Mack and the two get along instantly, Brady shows his inner Austin Moon by getting jealous and embarrassing himself in the process.
With school over surprisingly early, Brady looks at college applications but can’t answer the over-complicated application questions. Brady’s mother makes a quick appearance here but if you think that’s setting up for something, you’re tragically wrong.
He realises that he’s running late for the college fair as it’s… Twenty to four? How short is the school day? He arrives as the weather turns for dramatic effect, as he finds Mack talking with Spencer. The two argue as Brady refuses to admit what it is that’s distracting him, resulting in them taking a break in their relationship. The next song shows Brady recording and performing, again channelling his inner Austin Moon.
Meanwhile in the Wet Side Story universe, the guys seem to be stuck in an infinite time loop as the same story beats seem to be happening, but they all remember their encounter with Mack and Brady, Lela in particular wanting to change her role in the story and carry more agency. During the rendition of falling for you, she storms out and finds the necklace on the shore. She heads to the Ocean to investigate with Tanner following after her. The necklace somehow manages to get them across to the real world as they’re puzzled by things like mobile phones, water sports and wet-suits.
Brady and Mack are conveniently doing their thing at the same place at the same time as they come across the two. And being them they break into song about all the new stuff that amuses them, and they’re told they’re in the future. Mack and Brady decide to try and convince them to go back by showing them that life can suck in the future, so decide to take them to the worst place the know, SCHOOL!
Mack tries to help Lela dress in more modern attire but every outfit she tries on is converted to a 1960's equivalent, remember quick-changing costumes was something that came to Brady and Mack very early on whilst they were in Wet Side Story, not sure why the change isn’t applying in reverse but then their hair still stays dry, when it didn’t in the teaser at the end of the last film.
So they end up in school and I have some remarks about the whole thing, this is the point where the real world kinda starts morphing into the Wet Side Story world. They don’t react like people should in the real world when things like Tanner walking down a corridor like he’s doing a fashion shoot or them doing a song and dance routine to encourage people to smile. Lela also takes to calculus remarkably well, and gets on with most of Lela’s intelligent friends.
Tanner gets on fine at school but seeing Lela enjoying school as much as she does makes him wonder whether she things he’s not enough for her. This is something Brady relates and let’s onto his secret project, he’s designing custom surfboards with gimmicks, some of which are really cool ideas like one that can create its own waves, rifle’s loaded, Mr Checkov. Brady admits he and Mack have hit a rough patch in their relationship, over this... Brady
Haven’t used that one in a while. Lela tells Mack that whilst she’s happy to have a guy who loves her, it’s not the only thing she wants from life, much as Mack does. However, when she changes her outfit isn’t defaulted to 1960s, implying their adaption is starting to take effect. It’s not good news in the Wet Side Story universe either, as we get an interesting reprisal of 'Falling for Ya' done as a duet with, but background characters are beginning to disappear.
Brady, Mack, Tanner and Lela meet up and Tanner and Lela can get wet now, furthering their concerns, forcing Mack to finally spell out to them that they’re from a movie. They sing a song about how things are better in the film world and with all the set production and background, it seems like another song where the real world is becoming more like Wet Side Story. Lela again refuses, wanting to continue to live in this world. During the mess, the necklace is lost again.
Back in Wet Side Story, enough disappearances have happened for the core supporting cast to take notice, and the necklace washes up ashore again. They take the necklace and head out to sea, soon arriving in the real world. At this point Tanner and Lela have taken notice to Mack and Brady’s arguing. They find out from the others that people are disappearing, and Mack concludes that the film is disappearing from existence thanks to the leads no longer being present.
They resolve to head back as our leads prepare for the save the beach dance at the school. The two generally avoid each other during the dance, until our Wet Side Story cast burst in, sacrificing the necklace for a chance to reunite the two, for some reason.
And here’s a major problem with not just this story but the franchise in general, Mack and Brady are not a great couple. Neither one of them has made sacrifices for the other beyond what was necessary by circumstance. Contrast this for a moment with Austin and Ally, which has the same idea of two seemingly opposite people coming together over a common interest. Even before they become a couple officially, the two are constantly helping each other through difficult situations and making sacrifices for each other for no other reason than that they care. If you want an example from a Disney Musical, Troy and Gabriella talked about their worries and fears and help reassure each other and that’s before they become a couple.
Mack is confrontational at every turn and whilst she’s not wrong under most circumstances, I don’t think Brady is the right match for her, he doesn’t seem to be able to get her to let her guard down. Their breakup in this seemed inevitable. Mack had all these plans at school but never thought to let Brady in on any of them until it was too late for him to get involved. And Brady believing that Mack has everything figured out after all of the last movie happened is just stupid in its own right. It’s not a big deal that you’re working on interesting surfboard ideas, you may have found yourself a good little business, it’s not like College is the only avenue for the future, something else I feel they lean into far too heavily, and not just in this Disney teen film.
So, it’s implied that Brady needs confidence and cue the son Gotta be Me. I like this song and it’s the only one I remember from this film but was ‘ba da da dum dum de de bang bang’ really necessary lyrics? So, the two reunite, and now it’s time for to deal with getting the crew of the film home.
With the necklace a non-option, we need the surfboard from the first movie, but last time they needed a storm to get the kind of waves, so...
Checkov, I believe that’s your gun now, time to use the wave generating board. Tanner and Lela are conveniently now the only members of the cast left and get to work removing the rose plaque from the board whilst Mack and Brady head into Brady’s workshop that conveniently has suit clothes in it. Brady finally sees what he’s up to and the two admit their feelings, Mack apologising for making Brady feel like he had to keep this secret. That was on him, Mack, seriously.
They get the board and attach the plaque with the power of magical sparkles, I’m not kidding. Before they leave, two things of note, Mack tells Lela that she can change the movie and as she and Tanner head off, Mack expresses concern that without the movie, the two of them would never have met, both these points foreshadowing the complete clusterf*ck that’s coming.
There’s a bit of added drama as Brady has to go in and fix the board’s engines so it can produce the lift, but it’s soon sorted and the two are transported back. Brady heads back to shore and right past Mack to Devon. They see a party up ahead and it’s a save the beach party that Mack is running, it’s a theme party based on Mack’s favourite film, Lela: Queen of the Beach.
OK, let’s try to unravel this because man is it a mess. So, Lela had Mack’s words to heart and changed the movie which had in turn changed the timeline so Mack and Brady hadn’t met. So many problems here, this basically means there was no need to be invested in their relationship at any moment previously, including most of the central conflict of this film. It’s never a good idea to undermine people’s emotional investment in characters, you want your audience to care! You’ve retroactively soured me on the entire previous movie because nothing that happened in it mattered!
And since we’re adding time-travel to the list of things we’re looking at here, now the movie Wet Side Story doesn’t exist, and Mack and Brady didn’t get together over it, they also didn’t get transported there, meaning the chain of events that lead to Queen of the Beach never happened either. This is the wrong type of paradox.
OK, that’s the technical problems out of the way, now let’s look at what Queen of the Beach actually is: I have no f*cking clue. The story of Wet Side Story is pretty simple. Two star-crossed lovers from opposite gangs have to survive a conflict, the gangs are brought together to fight a common enemy. The conflict between the gangs is essential for this plot to work for most of the runtime, but based on the opening song, that conflict is already over. So what takes up the bulk of the narrative now?
I get what they wanted here, and I see why making this choice would be appealing, many at Disney would drool at the idea of retroactively making a work from the 1930's less problematic, but at the same time, is that a good thing? The Old Looney Tunes box sets often came with a warning that certain cartoons may contain offensive stereotypes, and that they’ve decided to show them in full because not doing so would be paramount to saying the problems never existed in the first place and could easily break the narrative if done improperly, like it is here. Incidentally, Disney has started doing this too with old Disney movies
Mack and Brady meet and we get what’s essentially a role reversal of how Brady said the two met before, and we get another song on projection where people stand right in front of the screen and don’t cast shadows.
So, that was Teen Beach 2 and whilst it’s not unbearable to watch, I can’t forgive this ending.
The songs are fine, none of them especially memorable but they’re all pleasant to listen to, with decent vocals and the dance choreography remains one of the film’s strong points. The acting is reasonably solid there are a few funny jokes scattered throughout that make me smile.
The idea of the Wet Story crew coming to the real world is a clever one, but one that’s not explored properly. They really should’ve seen a warts-and-all version of reality, which would make Lela’s decision to stay all the more meaningful, would’ve been nice to see more of Tanner’s attempts to adapt too. I also don’t like how they completely ignored the teaser from the last film, which showed the entire crew showing up at once.
I do think focusing on Brady since the last film focused on Mack was a good choice, they just forgot to give him a conflict that makes any sense. College applications might’ve worked if more focus was put onto it but it’s basically dropped when the Wet Side Story cast arrived.
Rage Rating 30%
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