The Good
Michael Angarano does a very good job inhabiting the classic “everykid,” in this tale of a boy coming to terms with being a superhero from a superfamily.
The Bad
Too much of this movie plays how you think it should play when it was clearly ripe to be shaken up a bit in it’s story structure.
There really seemed to be a lot of potential for Sky High, yet it didn’t seem to ignite the spark that I thought it would. With a budget of $60 million dollars against a total of $73 million dollars worldwide, DVD receipts should be enough to put this film in the black and possibly even greenlight a sequel. However, I don’t think that one is really warranted in this case. It wasn’t that I thought Sky High was a bad film, it just seemed fake. Artificial. As if the people at Disney were standing next to their movie blender, they dropped in all the requisite things that makeup a Disney film and then low and behold here is the final product that they got. Like any food, sometimes it turns out good, sometimes bad and other times things are just okay.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
Sky High is a film that’s just okay. It’s got all the right elements (actors, director, story, etc…) yet it never seems comfortable being what it is or isn’t. Also, it seems held up by it’s creators need to pay respect to antiquated robots and ideas that just don’t seem to have a place here.
Features
Alternative Opening, Super Bloopers and Music Video
The Alternative Opening essentially establishes The Commander (Kurt Russell) and Jetstream (Kelly Preston) and why they are such legends. As this would have been the opening to the movie, these characters are placed in a perilous situation and they easily (or at least without breaking a sweat) get themselves out of it. Super Bloopers is an assortment of shots from the film where the characters messed up, or in the course of doing a stunt actually hurt themselves for a moment. Nothing too special here but I find bloopers to always be enjoyable. The
Video
Audio
tries and succeeds (mostly) in being a large, offbeat superhero movie. This success has a lot to do with the ambiance that is created by it’s classical soundtrack.
Package
The main characters from the movie are all posed and ready to go. They did a very good job mixing the “super” with the “normal,” because this cover doesn’t seem like it’s too over the top, yet, we know that we are watching a movie about superheroes. The back features some classic shots of superheroes lifting things, a description of what this movie is about, a “Special Features” listing, some technical specs and a cast list. I like that this DVD easily spells out what comes with it, and makes everything easy to find and negotiate.
Final Word
You know what would have been a really interesting bit of casting? If Bruce Campbell had been The Commander and Russell would have been Coach Boomer (Campbell’s character). First of all, I think this movie would have had a bigger audience because I think Bruce Campbell is due to be a leading man in bigger movies. Actually, he’s overdue to be a leading man but I think that’s a whole other column altogether. I just wish that a film like this would shake things up a bit more. It has been proven constantly over and over again that you can shake things up in such a way, by turning conventional wisdom on it’s ear, you actually create a new wisdom.
Sky High is one of those movies that could really have benefited a lot more if it had taken more chances. As it was, the movie played like almost every other Disney film, and only in parts slyly subverted the genre.
