Cadet Kelly
The movie premiered with 7.8 million viewers, a high for the network at the time. This movie was Duff's second movie where she played the main character. This was Disney Channel's second movie filmed in Canada.
Plot summary
The plot of the movie concerns Kelly, a free-spirited eighth grade girl whose mother gets married to Brigadier General Joe "Sir" Maxwell (played by Gary Cole).
When her new stepfather becomes the Commandant of a military school, Kelly enrolls there because it is the only school in the area. Kelly at first has trouble fitting in and obeying the orders of the officers above her, especially Cadet Captain Jennifer Stone, played by Christy Carlson Romano, who likes a fellow student named Cadet Major Brad Rigby who is played by Shawn Ashmore.
They reach the point of being taken to court and seeing Kelly sentenced to shine the uniforms of the drill team, a team she looked down upon, seeing the drill team members as robots. She makes the drill team and even helps the school win second place at the regional drill competition.
During the competition her father, who had promised to be there, is injured during a photo shooting, in which he falls over the side of a cliff edge.
Kelly, and Sir leave the competition when Kelly's father calls her on the her cell, which is their 'lifeline.' They find and rescue him, but by the time Kelly gets back to the competition, they're only down by five points. Cadet officer
Josh Wittig as Cadet bugler
Edie Inksetter as Math teacher
Stewart Arnott as Captain Lawrence
Desmond Campbell as Lt.
Mikkelson
Martin Roach as Drill instructor
Uncredited
Ashley Leggat as Dancer
Steve Bryan as Background Performer
Production
Primary filming for the school scenes was done at the Robert Land Academy, a military school in Canada. Hilary Duff was made an honorary Cadet Sergeant of the school during the production.
Andrew Long, drilled the actors in a "boot camp" style situation, often testing them with rehearsals of actual combat drills. He was very impressed with Hilary Duff's work, even remarking that she would do just fine in an actual military unit in Iraq.
Note
This was the very first Disney Channel Original Movie to air on The Wonderful World of Disney on ABC in the United States and CBC in Canada.