Someday, Troy and Gabriella will actually open their mouths when they kiss.

Someday, Sharpay won’t have backup dancers magically appear out of nowhere during her self-glorifying production numbers.

But for now, everything remains safely wholesome and intact in “High School Musical 3: Senior Year,” even as the series leaps from television to the big screen.

All those winsome East High Wildcats are back from parts one and two of the freakishly successful Disney Channel franchise — Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Corbin Bleu, et al. — as are mad-genius director Kenny Ortega and writer Peter Barsocchini. Only now, they have more expensive toys to play with, so the production values are glossier and the musical numbers are splashier.

But even as this third installment wallows in nostalgia, with the kids preparing for prom and clinging to the last moments of their senior year, it’s also clearly meant as a launching pad for the grown-up career of the dreamy Efron; one big dance sequence makes it obvious why he was chosen to star in the remake of “Footloose.” (Which is just plain wrong, says this child of the ’80s, but that’s a discussion for another time.)

Efron is tremendously magnetic with those high cheekbones and clear blue eyes, and here you finally see his potential as more than just a teen heartthrob: You see him as a leading man.

Will the movie win any new fans? Doubtful. If you’re not the parent, aunt or uncle of a 9-year-old, you’ve probably managed to keep the whole “HSM” phenomenon at the periphery of your consciousness, and you’ll continue to do so. But for those kids in the target audience, this is movie nirvana. And the adults forced to schlep with them to the multiplex? They’ll find it surprisingly tolerable. The songs are so catchy and the “HSM” kids are so good-looking and high-energy, you may as well surrender to their manipulative ways.

WATCH NOW

Eighteen-year-old Ian Lafferty sets out on a cross country drive with his best friends Lance and Felicia in order to lose his virginity to a red-hot babe he met on the Internet. But the journey, filled with hilarious misadventures and raunchy escapades, teaches all three more than they expected about life and love. Randy, raucous and unexpectedly romantic, Sex Drive follows three friends on the road trip of a lifetime!.

When I heard about Oliver Stone’s new film, simply called ‘W’ I wondered if it was too soon to make a George W. Bush movie. Either Stone wanted to beat the rest of the directing world to the Bush-film-punch to tell a different story, or he wanted to capitalize on the current low opinion of the President by making a comedic farce. I was confident when I walked into the theater that I’d be able to tell which it was.

If you like to laugh, watch it.