Word: skies
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Although spiraling into the animated abyss has become the preferred M.O. of Walt Disney Pictures (Pixar notwithstanding), Disney’s live action features have stabilized at pleasant amiability. So even if its latest release, “Sky High,” isn’t the entertaining generational crossover of “Pirates of the Caribbean” or the Pixar animations, it still is a delightful turn on the status...
Little in “Sky High” defies convention. And just like flipping the remote control to the Disney Channel (it’s even written by the creators of the network’s animated series “Kim Possible”), we have our unknown child actors, a few cameos for the grown-ups, a typical problem facing adolescents—in this case, popularity, or the lack thereof—and a valuable lesson learned in the end. This is more than enough to placate all that preteen angst, but by adding...
Will Stronghold (Michael Angarano), the son of the world’s two greatest superheroes, The Commander (Kurt Russell) and Jetstream (Kelly Preston), has a lot to live up to as he enters his first day at Sky High. It’s here that he’ll be thrown into one of two castes: Hero or Sidekick. “If life were suddenly to get fair,” Will tells his friend Layla as she describes the problems of the system, “I doubt it would happen in high school...
...rest of the young’uns are cute even in their one-dimensionality. A geek, a white ghetto boy, a loner, a hippie, and a tough guy (a-bit-too-cutely-named Warren Peace) are among the Sidekicks attending Sky High. They are predictable, though sweet in their lack of power—one melts, one glows, and another can even turn into a guinea...
It’s hard to tell whether “Sky High” is falling to formula or purposely kitsched up, but it does succeed in mocking comic conventions. Besides the lessons learned in the Sidekick’s “Hero Support” classes, we are treated to some full out “Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers”-style fighting between The Commander and Jetstream and a giant metal robot, as well as some very Morphin’-style villains plotting their next move...