Tisdale's rendering of the character as a jaded, morally-questionable resistance leader is just about enough for me to forgive her for having been a part of the HSM trilogy.
Uh, what's there to forgive? Sharpay was one of the best things about the HSM trilogy (the other being Ryan.)
Also, I didn't find the music that disappointing since I KNEW that it would be hard to top some of the songs from the show. I did really enjoy the Doofenshmirtz duet song though.
Otherwise I agree with the rest of the review. This movie was just excellent.
Well I may disagree with you on certain songs in the movie (though you are right that some of them do feel a little out of place despite Phineas and Ferb were trying to bring some light to their counterpart's dimension), I really like how Robot Riot turned out and I did enjoy Kickin' It Up a Notch.
Otherwise, there's no contest on the movie's quality. It's amazing on all levels and it really shows that the writers can make an excellent Made-For-TV movie.
Like others before me, I have to point out that "bad" isn't really the right word for the musical sequences— a step down from the usual fare, yes, but (as was noted in the review) we were really supposed to be focused on the action/drama this time around.
That being said... Personally, I really liked the songs. I've been humming Everything's Better with Perry since the demo was released early this year and the final versions of Robot Riot and A Brand New Reality were both really catchy, to boot. I don't think it's a problem with the songs themselves so much as the context they were used in— Takin' Care of Things, for instance, seemed an awful lot like a Missed Moment Of Awesome the way it was used.
But anyway, amazing movie— hilarious, awesome, and touching all in equal measures. There really isn't that much to criticize, like Xesirin said.
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Extremely Good
So in a continuing trend of quality for the series, the Made-For-TV Movie does almost everything right, and makes for a good hour and a half of entertainment.
I feel compelled to get the bad out of the way, though, so here's the bad news: The Musical Numbers were way below par this time around. Were this any other children's series they'd probably be well regarded, but thanks to the especially high bar set by this series (My personal favorites being the songs from "Summer Belongs to You" and "Dude, We're getting the Band back Together!") they feel lackluster this time around.
Part of that may be the setting: This is easily one of the darkest stories this series has ever told, and fitting catchy songs into this context probably proved a greater challenge than the other episodes. But unfortunately, the only song I can recall leaving any impact was the dimension-hopping montage, and even then, it's not up to the level usually established by this series.
Fortunately, the lackluster music is more than made up for with a very strong script, which manages to wring believable drama out of what is typically a very lighthearted series. And while the plot twists aren't quite clever enough to surprise anyone, the actual set-up and later execution of those points were fun to watch.
The best part of the movie is the characters, with especial emphasis on the "Earth-2" retoolings of the characters as they appear in the alternate dimension. Isabella as a badass resistance fighter is probably going to be inspiring Deviant Art for months to come (that goes double for each of her Fireside Girls counterparts). This, of course, ignores the fact that Candace-2 pretty much owns every damn scene she's in. I don't think I've ever seen any action scenes quite as visceral as the ones Candace-2 manages to pull off, and Tisdale's rendering of the character as a jaded, morally-questionable resistance leader is just about enough for me to forgive her for having been a part of the HSM trilogy.
So overall assessment: Music is pretty bad (well, in comparison to the rest of the series) but everything else is done so well that I feel no inclination to hold it against the series. And without spoiling too much, there's a lot of shippers who are going to be very pleased with the conclusion of the movie. I know I was.