Camp Rock is the latest and most shameful example of Disney's attempt to rule the pop music scene with the least amount of effort. The story doesn't have an original bone in its body, and the music sounds so artificial, it's impossible to tell where true talent ends and computerized tinkering begins.

Bright and bubbly Mitchie Torres (Demi Lovato) would love nothing more than to spend the summer at Camp Rock, a breeding ground for young up-and-coming musicians -- but her parents can't quite afford the steep tuition. Whhen her mom lands a catering position there, Mitchie's greatest wish comes true. Now it's all a matter of overcoming her intense shyness, learning how to share her creativity with the world and not let the talents (not to mention fat wallets) of her fellow campers get her down. Fortunately, there's one person who knows Mitchie has what it takes: Shane Gray (Joe Jonas), a pop star bad boy weathering his latest scandal du jour, who overhears Mitchie's lovely singing voice and spends most of his days trying to track her down. However, it's not long before Mitchie makes a swift enemy of Tess Tyler (Meaghan Jette Martin), Camp Rock's resident diva, who's prepared to do whatever it takes to make sure she walks away the winner of the camp's Final Jam at the end of the summer.

My high school days were relatively quiet, mostly spent keeping to myself while my classmates went about their business. Camp Rock, on the other hand, is another one of those movies depicting a teenager's every waking moment as filled to the brim with nonstop drama. In this film's world, you're either an idealistic optimist without an ounce of meanness or a stone-cold jerk whose life is dedicated to making everyone else miserable. In either case, you're stuck watching a one-dimensional caricature rather than someone possessing true heart and soul, and that's just one of the many ways in which Camp Rock proves to be a painful viewing experience. The story is more predictable than the changing of the seasons, and the filmmakers go about telling it in a clunky, unworkmanlike fashion. The screenwriters seem content to pile on the melodrama and hope everything works itself out by the ending credits. There's no flow whatsoever to the story, just an agonizingly long string of eye-rollingly cliched plot developments, punctuated by one flavorless song-and-dance number after another.

To me, Camp Rock's biggest mess-up involves its tunes, even though that's what will probably draw most teen-boppers to this film. For a movie emphasizing individuality, Camp Rock's soundtrack sounds almost exactly the same most of the time. Plus, although many of the numbers take place live and outdoors, they ring of being fresh from the recording studio, and such "on the fly" performances are  accompanied by choreography even Twyla Tharp would be pressed to come up with on the spot. There's an aura of phoniness surrounding the film, one that overwhelms whatever talents the young stars actually possess. Newcomer Lovato is a cutie pie (although her gigantic, omnipresent grin would put the Joker's legendary smirk to shame), and Jonas knows his way around a guitar, but it's often hard to differentiate between their own musical skills and Disney's army of mixing boards. 

Of course, decrying Camp Rock at this point is futile, for it's long since become a success, leading to a hit album and an inevitable sequel already in the works. Still, if there are any parents left on the planet whose kids haven't begged them to buy the DVD yet, I want them to know that Roseanne's rendition of the National Anthem may no longer be the biggest detriment to the world of music as we know it.

MY RATING: * 1/2 (out of ****)

(Released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment; not rated by MPAA.)