Psycho's Movie Reviews #417: Sky High (2005)

Sky High is a 2005 American superhero comedy film directed by Mike Mitchell and written by Paul Hernandez and Kim Possible creators Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle. The film stars Michael Angarano, Danielle Panabaker, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kelly Preston and Kurt Russell. It also features Bruce Campbell, Cloris Leachman, Jim Rash, Steven Strait, Lynda Carter, Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald. It tells the story of Will Stronghold, the son of two superheroes who is enrolled in an airborne high school for teenage superheroes, where his powers kick in; he must deal with a growing distance from his old friends, a threat from mysterious supervillain and get the girl of his dreams.

The film was released to theaters on July 29, 2005, and grossed 89.4 million worldwide on a 35 million budget. It received generally favourable reviews from critics.

Plot

Will Stronghold is hesitant to start his first year in Sky High, a covert, perpetually airborne school for the children of superheroes. While his parents, Steve and Josie, are the world's premiere superheroes under the aliases of "The Commander" and "Jetstream", respectively, Will himself has not developed any superhuman abilities. This is a source of extreme anxiety for him since powers are often hereditary and he feels the burden to live up to his family's reputation. On his first day at school, Will and his best friend Layla, who possesses powerful plant-controlling abilities, make friends with several new students including Zach, Ethan, and Magenta while fending off the hazing by popular seniors, Speed, Lash, and Penny. During hero training, their instructor divides the groups into "Hero" or "Sidekick" based on their powers, and Will is quickly humiliated when he cannot manifest any abilities. Layla refuses to take the test, so they and their friends are placed into "Hero Support" (specialized classes for sidekicks) and realize that they are on the bottom of the clique-based social order. Even so, Will finds some comfort with their new teacher, Mr. Boy (formerly the Commander's sidekick, the "All-American Boy"), who shows them that there is honour in working behind the scenes, even if there is little glory.

Will's parents initially assume that he has been accepted into the 'hero' courses and welcome him into the family's "secret sanctum", telling Will about their first team-up to stop the villain, "Royal Pain," and his superweapon, "the Pacifier," which is now a prized trophy. When Will confesses that he is in "hero support," his parents suppress their disappointment and do their best to be supportive. Will slowly begins to enjoy his new peer group and "hero support" training.

After several months, Will is manipulated into a fight with pyrokinetic student Warren Peace; the battle is initially one-sided until Warren threatens his friends and Will's latent superhuman strength emerges. While impressing most students, Will and Warren get into detention, and the two agree to a grudging truce. Due to school policy, the faculty push to move Will into 'hero' classes; with Mr. Boy and his peers' encouragement, Will agrees and joins the more powerful and popular students. There, he meets technopath Gwen Grayson, the student body president and the school's most popular girl, becoming distanced and alienated from his former peers. Gwen visits the Stronghold's house, inviting Will's parents to attend the school's Homecoming Dance party, and eventually invites Will as well, wishing to become his girlfriend, which Will accepts. Noticing the growing rift between herself and Will, Layla attempts going out more with Warren in an attempt to arouse jealousy, revealing to him she has been secretly in love with Will for a long time.

Gwen convinces Will to host a pre-Homecoming dance party at his home; there, he attempts to impress her by taking her into the secret sanctum and they kiss, but Gwen discretely steals several items, including the Pacifier. As Layla comes to the house to investigate the noise and discovers the party, she confronts Gwen who manipulates Layla into abandoning Will. Shortly after, Will realizes that he is being used and breaks up with Gwen. Unable to reconcile with Layla, he refuses to attend the dance and chooses to remain at home, even though his parents were invited as honoured guests. At the sanctum, he looks at his family's school yearbook and discovers entries for Sue Tenny, a technopath sidekick from science club holding the Pacifier; Will then notices that Tenny strongly resembles Gwen before noticing that the Pacifier itself is missing and deduces that Gwen is related to Tenny and used the party as a ruse to acquire it.

At the party, Gwen reveals that she is Royal Pain to the stunned students and teachers of Sky High. Her 'father' (actually her former sidekick, Stitches), Speed, Lash, and Penny reveal that they are her henchmen, and proceed to regress all teachers and students into infants. Layla, Warren, Zach, Ethan and Magenta escape and resist; arriving too late, Will makes amends with Layla and the others and the sidekicks effectively engage the henchmen while Will confronts Gwen herself. Gwen explains that she is Sue Tenney and was ostracized in 'sidekick' classes for her powers that were ahead of their time; she developed the Pacifier to transform adults into infants with the goal of raising them a second time as villains, but due to the Commander and Jetstream's interference, was subject to the ray herself and forced to relive her childhood as Gwen until she could take her revenge. During the fight, Royal Pain throws Will from the school to fall to his death; however, his flying powers emerge in the process, saving him. She then sabotages the school's anti-gravity device, putting the school in freefall until Will and his friends restore it and restrain her.

Will and his friends de-pacify the teachers and students, who finally recognize the sidekicks and their deeds; Gwen and her gang are sent to detention and later to prison for their crimes. In the closing narration, Will explains that his girlfriend (Gwen) became his archenemy, his archenemy (Warren) became his best friend, and his best friend (Layla) became his girlfriend stating, "but hey, that's high school."

Production

Exterior shots of the Sky High school were filmed at the Oviatt Library at California State University in Northridge in late 2004.

In between working on the first and second seasons of the animated series Kim Possible, creators Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle had begun writing a script for a live-action adaptation, which ultimately never came to fruition due to unknown reasons. Impressed with their work, the filmmakers asked them to look into re-writing the script for Sky High, which had been previously shelved. McCorkle believes they were recruited for Sky High because "they liked the idea of a superhero high school. I think, reading how we wrote teens in Kim Possible, they felt like, 'This feels good and contemporary, and maybe you can apply that to this project for us.' Similar to Kim Possible, Schooley and McCorkle wrote Sky High to be equally appealing to both children and adults. According to scifi.com, Disney was attracted by the "original concept" of "children of superheroes going to high school", originally conceived by screenwriter Paul Hernandez in the 1990s.

After recruiting comedy writers (creators of Kim Possible) for polishing Hernandez's script (they only wrote the beginning and ending sequences) Disney hired several comedians such as Kevin McDonald, Dave Foley, and Kevin Heffernan for supporting roles. For the main roles, the casting was a mix of established and new teenager actors: while Michael Angarano and Mary Elizabeth Winstead were already successful, Danielle Panabaker was little-known and Steven Strait (a former model) was hired after his first audition ever.

Director Mike Mitchell said that Sky High functions on two premises: "the adults are all insane" and "the girls are smarter than the boys": Therefore, all the adults portrayed in the film tend to be caricatured, while the teenage girls are written as more assertive and powerful than the boys. The film also employed extensive usage of Dutch angles. For the treatment of the teenage actors, Mitchell also stated that the actors all had their own trailer and were generally kept separated, because "we did not want them to date after the second week and break up after the fourth", which would have made filming difficult.

Mitchell, a science fiction fan, admitted that this project "was a dream", because it brought him together with four of his favorite SF cult heroes: namely Wonder Woman (popularized in the eponymous 1970s television series by actress Lynda Carter), Snake Plissken (portrayed by Kurt Russell), Ash Williams (from Evil Dead, played by Bruce Campbell) and Cloris Leachman, who earned fame as Frau Blücher in Young Frankenstein; and worked with Lynda Carter before in the pilot movie episode for the Wonder Woman TV series playing Hippolyta opposite Lynda Carter who played Wonder Woman herself.

Music

The Sky High Original Soundtrack was released by Hollywood Records on July 26, 2005, and is composed of covers of songs from the 1980s (with the exception of "Just What I Needed", which was from 1978). While none of Michael Giacchino's score was included on the song album, a limited edition of his score was issued by Intrada Records in 2017.

Release/Reception/Box Office

The film was released in separate widescreen and full screen format editions on DVD on November 29, 2005. It was also released on VHS but only through Disney Movie Club, making it the final live-action Disney film to be released on VHS. It was also released on high definition Blu-ray for an original widescreen presentation on November 21, 2006.

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 73% based on reviews from 131 critics, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The site's critical consensus states: "This highly derivative superhero coming-of-age flick is moderately entertaining, family-friendly fluff." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 62 based on reviews from 29 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade A− on a scale of A+ to F.

Joe Leydon of Variety magazine praised the film calling it: "Smartly written and sprightly played, Sky High satisfies with a clever commingling of spoofy superheroics, school-daze hijinks" and "this lively live-action Disney release stands on its own merits as a tongue-in-cheek fantasy with cross-generational appeal." Neil Smith at BBC.com wrote: "While originality is hardly the film's strongest suit, its agreeable mix of knowing spoof and kid-pleasing fantasy makes it considerably more engaging than some of the 'straight' superhero blockbusters we've suffered recently."

On an estimated budget of US$ 35 million, the film grossed just under $64 million in the US, and another $22 million internationally, bringing the total to $86 million.

Budget $35 million

Box office $86.4 million

My Review

Way way back in the day (with apologies to the theme song for "Phil Of The Future"), Filmation made a live-action/animated series called "Hero High" about superheroic teenagers in their school days. Not that I'm accusing "Sky High" of filching this premise; this is far superior to just about anything Filmation ever did. It's also the summer's best superhero movie - more appealing than "Batman Begins," better written than "Fantastic Four," and more thrilling than either. It may not have instant cachet or Jessica Alba, but then again you can't have everything.

Since this is a Disney movie, I guess you'll know what to expect: humour, safe action, some camp, lotsa colour, and a feel good factor. Sky High is all these and, surprisingly, a whole lotta fun too! Sometimes music makes the movie for me, and when I heard "Everybody Wants To Rule The World", I knew the filmmakers had this done right, for a superhero movie that doesn't take itself too seriously.

Sky High refers to a special school hovering up in the sky, where the children of super-beings go to, for an education to learn how to harness their powers. Interestingly, they do not learn whether to use it for good or evil, it's entire up to them (i.e. no moral or social studies here). Will Stronghold had it tough from the start - being the only child of 2 Superhero parents (most have only 1 parent as a super being), he had to uphold both his parents and the general population's expectation of his perceived abilities, which he knows is, none. What's more, his parents are the most powerful of them all, and everyone in school naturally gives respect to his family name. Alas, here's where the fun starts.

There are plenty of one-dimensional characters, like the school pranksters, the loner with an attitude, the most popular girl in school, the cheerleader, the coward, the Haves and the Have-nots. Rather, make that the Heroes and the Losers/Sidekicks. Like local schools, Sky High segregates lessons between those with heroic-like powers (super strength, speed, ability to fly, etc) and those with more benign and less powerful abilities. However, my favourite scenes are those lessons with the Hero-Support group (a more politically correct term for Sidekicks), taught by a teacher, whom I suspect is a jab at a grown-up Burt Ward Robin.

While this is mainly a kid's show, there are more adult themes thrown in. Though adults would probably get tired with the Loser to Hero storyline, they'll probably get more of the inside jokes and references thrown in abundance in this movie. Hamming it up as the adult characters in the movie are Kurt Russell as The Commander, and Kelly Preston as Jetstream - Earth's mightiest couples, and TV's Wonder Woman Lynda Cater appears as Sky High's principal - do listen for a classic line! Bruce Campbell contributes to the humour as the typical Coach Boomer (sonic boom abilities), but my favourite ought to be Ron Wilson - Bus Driver!

So while the storyline's nothing to wow about, the delivery is still top notch, and it's pretty enjoyable watching a typical US high school drama with super powers added to spice things up. The special effects are well done too, though cheesy at some points, again, just to jab Adam West's Batman (the pole, the bat-computer like computer).

If you're a fan of cartoons and comics, you'll definitely not want to miss this - you'll be in awe at how many familiar references you can catch in this movie! 6/10