Sky High (2005) –
I don’t know how this movie slipped under my radar for an entire decade, given
that it’s in some aspects Disney’s live-action follow-up to The Incredibles. But where the 2004 Pixar film was an instant
classic, subverting genre tropes while simultaneously reveling in them, Sky High carries itself a little too
cutely, with only the self-referential winks keeping this one from being just
another angsty coming-of-age flick.
Michael Angarano plays Will Stronghold, the powerless son of The
Commander and Jetstream (Kurt Russell and Kelly Preston, respectively) who’s
deposited in sidekick school until his abilities manifest. As I said, there’s none of the intelligence
of The Incredibles here, other than
the high-concept of a superhero high school (which, honestly, we’ve seen
before). Instead, there’s an
uncomfortable dissonance between the vibrant colors of the costumes and the
frankly cheap special effects that look much less than their $35 million
budget; the cast are giving it their all, especially Russell’s gung-ho
performance as the exuberantly enthusiastic father of a super-to-be, but I’m
inclined to say that Sky High
ultimately falls flat. That said,
however, there is nothing in Sky High
that is patently bad, for it never offends with ineptitude. It is, rather, less successful than it wants
to be, less intelligent than it needs to be, but there is the somewhat irresistible
charm of a movie which is unapologetic about its own “dumb fun” ethos, a movie
which is by and large predictable but has no pretensions about its own
intelligence. There is little that
separates Sky High from a
direct-to-television film, but there is a sizable gap between this and a movie
that worsens its audience for having seen it.That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!
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