Sky High - B

​Quick Hit: Honestly not nearly as bad as you may be afraid of. 

After the heavy hitting, dramatic beats of a lot of the Academy Award nominated films, we here at DoubleFeaturePreachers thought it might be nice to do some films that were a bit mindless. Therefore, this next group of films will probably be a bit of a medley, and will probably not be award winners. And what better to do than a Disney movie from 2005 about a superhero school?
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Honestly, if you ask me about guilty pleasures, I tend to gravitate immediately to horror movies, Poptarts, and chocolate milk. But what always slips my mind is this film, which I saw right around the time my parents FINALLY got cable television. This film is essentially the epitome of a guilty pleasure for me, because I’m a little ashamed about how much I enjoy it. And yet, the more times I watch it (don’t even ask how many), the more I enjoy this little film. 

I gave you the plot – but there is also a beautiful little deconstruction of the superhero genre when it was still filled with X-Men and Spiderman. The Stronghold family is a bit like the Incredibles – with The Commander (Kurt Russell) and Jetstream (Kelly Preston) leading the family, how can young Will Stronghold (Michael Angarano) be anything but the greatest of all the superheroes?

The film doesn’t have much that is not routine or expected – the film is a Disney film, after all. However, there is a lot of good to it. The characters are all well drawn within their standard molds. This includes the side characters, led by Danielle Panabaker (now on The Flash) as Layla, Will’s best friend, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Scott Pilgrim, 10 Cloverfield Lane) as Gwen Grayson. There’s even a Bruce Campbell appearance, and he’s really good as always. The characters are obviously written with love for the comic content. Never do the characters approach being written as tongue-in-cheek, and the humor is surprisingly above bar. A lot of movies like this could end up being a never-ending parade of puberty jokes, but it isn’t to be – and the movie is much better for it. 

Don’t misunderstand me though – this isn’t an Oscar film. It’s a film for people that like surprisingly decent effects, but not amazing ones. It’s a film that focuses on relationships that are between teenagers, and those that watch it for a first time as an adult may have difficulty connecting. But I can’t help loving it. I know it isn’t the best movie, and that’s why I only can rate it a “B”, but it’s really an “A” in my heart.

For more on this film, check out IMDB.