I heard somewhere that Taking 5 was being described as High School Musical with a twist. Luckily for me, Taking 5 is not a musical at all, but rather a movie about a boy band that features performances by the band. Better yet, the boy band is not an actual "pop" band, but is played by The Click 5, a rock band with some actual skill. I, personally, became a fan when I first heard their hit, Just the Girl.

In Taking Five, however, The Click 5 are not playing as themselves, but, rather, as the boy band, 5 Leo Rise (no, it doesn't make any sense to me, either). Devon (Aloha Tal) and Gabby (Daniella Monet) are two high-school girls barely hanging on to the fringe of popularity who absolutely idolize 5 Leo Rise, so it only makes sense that the would try to achieve their popularity by collecting enough drink labels to win a promotional contest that would result in 5 Leo Rise playing a concert at their school. The two industrious girls do collect enough labels to do just that and show up the snobby popular girl and her stooge in the process, but a clumsy mishap results in the labels getting burned beyond recognition (and, worse yet, beyond eligibility) before they can be officially turned over to win the prize. The result? 5 Leo Rise will play at a different school and our two lovely nerdletts are social outcasts, where the school actually is against them.

The two hatch a plan to convince 5 Leo Rise to play for their school as well, and failing that, enlist the school's most legendary prankster, Lincoln (Marcus T. Paulk) to help them kidnap 5 Leo Rise. And, as they say, the hijinks - and the hilarity - ensues.

Taking Five is a story about sticking by your friends, facing your fears, doing what you believe in and, I suppose, making the best of a bad situation. While the acting sometimes felt like an afterschool special, sort of an overexaggerated characiture that, for some reason, filmmakers seem to think teens (and tweens) like, it was comedic, cute and surprisingly enjoyable.

If you have to watch a "teeny" movie with someone, and like me, you think that there was a time for musicals, but that was an era ago, you should give Taking Five a shot. If you're just a fan of The Click Five, you should probably rent this before buying, or at least know that it doesn't feature a lot of their music, primarily just the song made for the movie, Kidnap My Heart; not a bad song, but this is not a The Click Five concert in movie form, this is a movie that features musically talented actors that just-so-happen to make up The Click Five.