LEMONADE MOUTH (2011)

LEMONADE MOUTH (2011)

(Drama, Band, Comedy) [TV-PG]

What happened? Did you all get hit by a bus or something?

In this one 5, high school kids end up in detention on the same day. To kill the time in the “basement” where the detention is, they are instructed to clean up the place. Instead, they randomly start playing some of the instruments in the room and make up a song on the spot. You know…exactly how all bands are formed. Clearly, they are destined to rock, so now they need a name and a cause. 

The band is made up of lead singer, Olivia (played by Bridgit Mendler who is still acting, but also did some music not related to the movie), Mo who says she plays cello, but I am pretty sure she’s playing bass guitar most of this movie (played by Naomi Scott from CHARLIES ANGELS and ALADDIN and has had the biggest career out of all the kids in the band in this movie), Charlie as the drummer, (played by Blake Michael), Stella on guitar, (played by Hayley Kiyoko who was once involved in a few Scooby-Doo projects), and Wen on keyboards and occasional rapping (played by Adam Hicks) who meet in detention. All the actors and actresses do pretty great in this movie, but outside of the band and a few veteran actors, everyone else is a bit rough. The rival band that LEMONADE MOUTH sees as the biggest threat to their success is vomit-inducing when it comes to lyrics and attitude, so we have that going on.  

On one hand, most musicals come with a bit of cheese, but the way they introduce some of the songs in this movie kind of makes you think it’s more of a musical than just a movie about a band and their issues. I do wish they had made some better choices regarding how the songs are introduced. The first song in this movie is kind of introduced in the same way the only song in CAVEMAN is…someone picks up something and randomly makes a beat. It’s not terrible, but I would rather they had one of them practicing and then the others asking to join, etc. More of a legitimate jam session. One other issue I have is that the movie builds up to a giant battle of the bands scene that ends up heartwarming but lame. Finally, the best song by far in the movie is the first song the band plays in front of a crowd. Even though the lyrics consist of a word that isn’t even real, the song itself is epic. The fact that they perform it at a Halloween dance for the school is even more epic. What isn’t epic, is that scene comes about 25 minutes into the movie and it’s the hi-light. It doesn’t get any better after that. 

What I liked about the movie was the introduction and backstories for each of the kids in the band. The story of how they got their name and most of the music is pretty decent for a TV movie. One of the songs in this movie is on several of my Spotify playlists. I know, I am a huge dork. The movie is also presented in pretty easy to swallow life lessons with very little “grit” which is what I like in a lot of musicals. Mostly light and fluffy fun nonsense.  

I give LEMONADE MOUTH a 5 out of 7. In spite of my issues with this thing, I never regret watching it when I do. It’s still a blast.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF MARTIN CHASE PRODUCTIONS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.  

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