Review of Hilary Duff's Island Birthday Bash

First off if you missed this show, it will re-air on the WB Sunday night Sept 28 (Hil's REAL birthday) at 7pm. Don't miss this show the second time around..it's worth watching!! Even though it placed DEAD LAST in the ratings Wednesday night (only about 2 million viewers) and was given a bad review in Entertainment Weekly Magazine (I don't think they like her anyway--they never reviewed her cd) calling it a show that "nobody over 12 years old should watch unless they need medical attention". Guess what: I should be DEAD right now for watching it!! The bottom line: I LOVED THIS SHOW AND I LOVE HIL!!!!!!!!

Now for the review:

The show starts off somewhat innocent enough. We enter Hil's bedroom and look around (yes, it's all pink) and also get a fast look at the neighborhood and the outside of her house!! Note to stalkers: if you watch this and know Hil's neighborhood, she's in deep trouble..it was a bad idea showing a quick drive to her house. After the quick tour, we meet some of Hil's best friends. They all seem nice enough and VERY close (a couple of them were previously introduced in the MTV Diary Special last month). The one big "surprise" that Hil didn't know about is that her friends were going to Hawaii too. But they were taking a different flight so that they could surprise her when she got there. And she thought she was leaving them behind...

Once in Hawaii, the show basically turns into a travel log. See Hilary kayak through caves, see her jump off cliffs, see her snorkel, see her atv ride (thankfully she wore a helmet), see her play Tarzan by swinging on a rope into water, and surf (she was tethered to the board so she wouldn't drown).

About 10 minutes into the show, Hil performed her first song "Come Clean". It was actually the second song. The first was her hit "Why Not". It played over the opening of the show. This will be her next released single and judging from the sound of it, this song is perfect. In fact, this should be the video for the song. It takes place in a giant canyon with Hil dressed in Hawaiian style clothes and panning around the area. A few minutes later, she performed "Anywhere But Here" in a similar venue. This took the first half hour of the show.

The second half hour was all concert. Hilary performed "Little Voice", "Workin' It Out", "So Yesterday" and "Party Up" in that order for the next 15 minutes. Then came the "surprise guest": Simple Plan signing only 1 song: "Heartbreaker". They panned into the audience where Hil was more times than they showed the band. Then after that, everybody joined in to sing "Happy Birthday" and Hil came up on stage to cut a large birthday cake brought out on stage. Instead of eating it, she smacked on the face of the band's leader. He took a piece and rubbed it on her face in retaliation. Apparently, she enjoyed that more than eating it!

With about 5 minutes left in the show came the most tender moment: all of Hil's friends put together a scrapbook of their trip and presented it to her around a campfire on their final night on the island. She absolutely loved it! Then the show was over..it seemed to end way too quickly!

The show was taped over the Labor Day weekend, so apparently not much time could be given to any activity. But Hil enjoyed them all!! Between scenes, Hil, while laying on a beach chair at the hotel, does a monologue on what happened next in every scene. She seemed extremely happy and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. The only bad thing was that we never see Hil arriving back on the mainland again!! Then again, it was only 1 hour long!! Overall, Hil performed 7 songs (I loved them all!) from her cd and Simple Plan performed just 1. To say that anyone over 12 should not watch this special, just doesn't understand that this show was mostly a musical travel journal!! My rating: 10 out of 10. Kleenex rating: you will need a couple at the end when Hil receives her scrapbook, but otherwise this is a very HAPPY show!!

Once again, if you missed it the first time around, don't miss it Sunday night at 7pm on the WB!! You will be sorry!!