So I was watching TV a couple of days ago when I happened across a commercial for a new movie, Journey 2 (Serious question: Was there a Journey 1?). The films stars The Rock, and looks absolutely, positively dreadful, in an absolutely, positively dreadful type of way. In short: The Rock runs around, big animals attack, he’s tough, blah, blah, blah. Oh, and it’s in 3D—so add on another $3 or $4 for 90 minutes of sludge.
Alas, I was surprised to catch Selena Gomez in the background of one of the scenes. Gomez, after all is the flavor of the month—a pretty, young singer/actress who even dates Justin Bieber. Why, I wondered, would someone like Gomez play third fiddle in a shitbag Rock action flick.
Then I looked a little closer. It wasn’t Selena Gomez at all.
It was Vanessa Hudgens.
Sigh.
Six years ago, Vanessa Hudgens was it. Like, It It. She was the star of High School Musical, a film my then-3-year-old daughter couldn’t get enough of. That was followed by two more episodes, each one a little crappier than the original. The final High School musical came out in 2009, and since then Hudgens has appeaed in, according to IMDB, Bandslam, Beastly, Sucker Punch and Cool Baby-Lame Baby.
Uh … yeah.
I’m not writing this to mock Vanessa Hudgens. For all I know, she’s a solid actrss. It just always amazes me how the world of American entertainment lifts people to astonishin heights—then drops them on their heads. A few years ago, there wasn’t a mall in American Vanessa Hudgens could walk through without being swarmed. She was a superdooper star; a hero to young girls; a sex symbol to teen boys; the heroine of three blockbusters.
Now, she’s standing behind the Rock.
In ugly shorts.
