Rock 'n' roll high schools

Bandslam (2009) is a film about teenagers interested in alternative rock, produced by Christian educationalists Walden Media and starring a clutch of Disney's wholesome young actors. It joins a run of films about independent music and its fans, including the breakout Oscar success Juno (2007), which combines teen heartthrob turned Arrested Development star Jason Bateman with the sad quirky music of Kimya Dawson. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008) follows teens through a night in New York in a quest for a secret gig (an upbeat successor to urban movies from The Warriors to Hangin' With The Homeboys). (500) Days of Summer (2009) is about twentysomethings wondering if love exists and whether musical taste is the be-all and end-all, or if (as Los Campesinos once sang) "it's not what you like, it's what you're like as a person". But this trend also follows such kid-oriented material as Freaky Friday (2003), in which Lindsay Lohan plays guitar in a rock band when not swapping bodies with Jamie Lee Curtis, and even a range of Bratz dolls with attached guitars.

Bandslam centres on Will (Gaelan Connell), a nerdy teenage boy who moves from the horrors of Cincinnati to the paradise of New Jersey (the reason for his leaving does become clearer). His mother is played by Lisa Kudrow: unlike her fellow Friend Jennifer Aniston she has not become a film star but has prospered in smaller films as best friend or sister and now mom. She and her son have an unhealthily close relationship: while he's in the shower she sits on the toilet to talk to him; at one point he encourages her to unzip her top to get the services of a talented drummer with a fondness for older women.

In New Jerseyan suburbia (the Garden State was the subject of another music-heavy film with Zach Braff and Natalie Portman), our hero finds himself in a sort of romantic triangle with two girls. Charlotte is a blonde ex-cheerleader who helps out at playgroup and leads her own dodgy band Glory Dogs - not to be confused with the school's favourite band Ben Wheatly and the Glory Dogs whose singer she once dated. Her strange behaviour is explained towards the end when it emerges that she has made a pact with God (everyone has their secrets here). She is played by Alyson Michalka, who starred in Disney sitcom Phil of the Future, which had a certain following outside its core age group.

The other girl is Sa5m (the 5 is silent - one of the better jokes), brunette and antisocial, played by Disney superstar Vanessa Hudgens, who was Gabriella, the female lead, in High School Musical. While HSM co-star Zac Efron was worshipped by the camera and given many long sequences to show his sensitive side and conflicted personality, Hudgens suffered from a lack of material as his love interest: a mathlete in the first film turned into a lifeguard in the second. She's not much better off here, miscast as Bandslam's troubled girl (think of Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club or Julia Stiles in 10 Things I Hate About You for how it should be played) with her natural perkiness and an inability to slouch or mumble or look anything other than well-scrubbed and beautiful.

As with many teen stories, the film uses the device of unsent letters - Will composes regular missives to David Bowie. This appears forced and incongruous, not least because otherwise he doesn't seem to be a particular Bowie fan, but does create expectations for the inevitable Bowie cameo, which is late and brief and poor by the standards of Ricky Gervais's Extras. (In fairness, many things that teenage boys do are forced and incongruous.) Rather than go to the trouble of learning to play an instrument, Will becomes manager of Charlotte's group of no-hopers (one of whom is told off for bearing a resemblance to Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, whom he is almost entirely unlike). He rapidly improves the band by recruiting even more freaks and outcasts, from shop class, orchestra, and marching band.

The film was shot in Austin, Texas, known for its excellent live music scene, and some local bands feature in the climactic bandslam (a music competition not a wrestling event). But the film's attitude to music is inconsistent, flipping between the super-cultish and the mainstream. Will and Charlotte bond while arguing whether The Velvet Underground's self-titled third album is better than their debut, The Velvet Underground and Nico. He wants to visit CBGB's in New York, but uses his trip to enthuse about how punk's spirit inspired U2 and The Killers; most cliquey, over-serious indie fans dislike the pompous stadium rockers (aptly parodied in South Park with Bono's quest to produce the biggest bowel movement in history) and the 80s-influenced pop-rock Mormons.

A similar conflict can be seen in 10 Things I Hate About You, slightly cooler but still fairly mainstream, where the heroine speaks of her love for Bikini Kill (confrontational riot grrls who recorded the best-ever double A-side I Like Fucking/I Hate Danger) and the Raincoats (wayward, disorganised mostly-female post-punk act who swung between dreamy proto-world music and fierce denunciations of soldiers visiting prostitutes) but the film features cute power-poppers Letters To Cleo. Both 10 Things and Bandslam feature covers of Cheap Trick's I Want You To Want Me.

But according to Bandslam the greatest music genre of all isn't indie rock, power pop, or even poverty-eliminating Irish stadium pomp. It is reggae, and particularly the 1960s subgenre called ska, which is apparently better because it's not just about getting stoned. This is a curious statement, as Rastafarians like Bob Marley blended a fondness for weed with a passion for social justice that has made him an icon throughout the developing world, while ska was mostly party music that focused on beats not lyrics. But perhaps the anti-drug message is more important. (In the infinitely cooler Ghost World, the nihilistic heroes dismiss reggae and its main audience of dumb stoners with a contemptuous glance.) Hudgens is particularly fond of Everything I Own, a big hit for Jamaican singer Ken Boothe and a reggae-tinged cover by Boy George.

Walden Media may have filmed The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe but isn't the worst company to be making kids' films: aside from their genuine commitment to get kids reading, their adaptation of Bridge to Terabithia was moving and shocking, with indie-queen Zooey Deschanel at her nicest and best as a school teacher. There isn't much religion in Bandslam, and as with the lion-killing in Wardrobe, it's more Flannery O'Connor than nativity play: a teenage girl who promises to be nice if God will spare her terminally ill father, then sees him die. Religion, then, is real but not always benign.

There are some good jokes (feeding toddlers teriyaki-flavour beef jerky, a bit of Violent Femmes business), and there are certainly plot twists, even though the film is badly paced. But if you were to rate the kids' rebelliousness and cool on a scale from the Heathers to the Flanders, they're not even as cool as Lindsay Lohan in Freaky Friday who manages to be authentically hard to get out of bed in the morning.

Bandslam is made by adults with a pop-culture sensibility but is aimed at kids and the censors who guard them. Movies like Ghost World, Heathers, or Mysterious Skin choose to show teenage life as a random, brutal, nightmarish place where you've got to make your own meaning; Juno approaches adult themes with cutting jokes; and The Breakfast Club and 10 Things I Hate About You represent teenage confusion with some attempt at sincerity. In contrast, Bandslam has improbable plot elements, tried-and-tested cliches, pretty girls, and a few flashes of wit. The result is less anarchic than many shows on Nickelodeon; even Disney's Kim Possible (an animated heroine who fights super-villains with the aid of a naked mole rat) is a more interesting and complex character. But for fans of alternative music, or of movies that make references to Patti Smith and Samuel Beckett (Will's band is called I Can't Go On, I'll Go On which he justifies as being no stupider than Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly!), it's a fascinating collision of commerce and art.

The movie is set in the fictional Martin Van Buren High School. This might be a nod to Glee or Freaks and Geeks, both of which feature a William McKinley High School; to James K Polk Middle School in Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide; or to The Brady Bunch which had both Fillmore and Coolidge Highs.