Cinderella goes to camp

You have to give the Disney Channel props: It knows how to give its young viewers what they want.

Camp Rock, the channel's big-tent summer event, is a ridiculously formulaic, utterly irresistible musical treat.

It stars teenybopper heartthrobs the Jonas Brothers. Well, actually it stars Joe Jonas, he of the obsidian Peter Gallagher eyebrows, as Shane Gray, a rock star who after yet another unspecified scandal is forced to spend his summer tutoring young aspiring musicians at a rustic sleepaway camp.

Joe's siblings, Kevin and Nick, playing (big stretch here) his siblings and bandmates, show up only at the beginning and the end of the film for comic relief and lip-synching support.

For Shane, Camp Rock is a prison. For young Mitchie Torres (newcomer Demi Lovato), it's the portal to her dreams. But keenly embarrassed by her blue-collar background, Mitchie makes up elaborate stories about her family, hiding the fact that her mother (Maria Canals Barrera) is the camp cook.

The fly in the bug juice is snooty Tess Tyler (Meaghan Jette Martin), entitled daughter of a massive pop star. Every time mom wins another Grammy, she buys a bauble for Tess' heavy charm bracelet. But she can't seem to give the girl her undivided attention.

As soon as Tess emerged from her limo, tossed her blond mane, and glanced around scornfully at the other campers, my daughter said, "That's the Sharpay of Camp Rock." Indeed, Martin plays the villainess role much as Ashley Tisdale did in High School Musical.

The movie is something of a Cinderella fable. On the first day of the summer session, Shane overhears Mitchie singing one of her original self-actualizing anthems and is reminded of what he loved about music before he became a spoiled sellout. He spends the rest of the movie searching for the girl with the mystery voice.

Umm, have you tried the adjoining cabin? It's a pretty small camp.

Lovato, who resembles a young Phoebe Cates, is a little too wholesome and smiley for a would-be rocker grrrl. Then again, this is the Disney version of rock. There are lots of sequins in evidence, but you don't see an electric guitar until the very end of the movie, and then it's a prop that one of the girls strums as if she's plucking feathers off a chicken.

The instruments employed throughout don't match the arrangements. And on one solo song, as Shane serenades Mitchie, you can clearly hear harmonies in the mix.

The action is built around the opening-night jam, the campfire jam, and the final jam, performance showcases for suspiciously big production numbers.

Even though these musical romps are ostensibly improvised, they're incredibly polished. In fact, these kids jump into elaborately choreographed dance routines at the drop of a beat.

For a long, dark period it appears that the spiteful Tess is going to spoil our fairy-tale ending. But that's the wonderful thing about the Disney ethos: Evil is self-correcting.

In real life, Tess would be a candidate for 20 grueling years of therapy, dealing with her mommy issues alone. But in Camp Rock, she miraculously finds her own way to redemption and penitence by the final act. Will wonders never cease?

The camp setting, shot in Canada, is pretty cool, with the sun glinting off the lake and Joe Jonas lounging soulfully against a beached canoe. And the music isn't bad. In fact, the ballads are totally enjoyable.

OK, you can see the ending coming before the movie's first commercial, but Camp Rock's predictability doesn't dampen its pleasure.

When Shane and Mitchie do finally make beautiful music together (this is Disney, folks, so I mean that literally), it will make your heart water-ski.