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With wit and charm, 'Sky High' soars

Like Steven Spielberg, Disney has a reputation for hyper-calibrated, spit-shined quality for good reason. The studio is a driven perfectionist, arrogant in its exceptionalism, working on a higher plane with lots more money than the next guy. Completely capable of dumping out duds, Disney, when the machine is greased and cranking, can mint the exemplary, high-gloss entertainment that Hollywood was made to produce.

Walt Disney Pictures 'Sky High' 3 out of 5 stars Director: Mike Mitchell Starring: Michael Angarano, Kurt Russell, Kelly Preston, Lynda Carter, Danielle Panabaker Run time: 102 minutes Release date: July 22, 2005 Rating: PG for action violence and some mild language. See showtimes On the web Official movie site Rate "Sky High"   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

Disney is in nice form with the brisk and affable 'tween comedy "Sky High," a spoofy, goofy superhero fantasy about a boy whose parents, the most famous superheroes in the world, expect their son to follow in their mighty cape billows. Bummer then that the son, 14-year-old Will Stronghold (a winning Michael Angarano), has no evident superpowers, leaving him just a nerdy kid entering Sky High, a high school for budding superheroes located on a massive floating platform way up in the clouds. You can see the knot of helpless confusion on Will's face as he is tormented by adolescence's twin terrors: parental pressure and teen angst.

Let's face it, Sky High is Hogwarts for the comic-book bound, or a counterpart to the X-Men's Mutant Academy. (We won't harp on the movie's huge debts to "Spy Kids" and "The Incredibles," which also track the adventures of world-saving super broods who cope with the banal family troubles we all have.)

But as the producers consider "Sky High" — and we quote — "'The Breakfast Club' with capes," the school is also an incubator of cookie-cutter cliques. Instead of jocks and geeks, we have Heroes and Sidekicks — that is, students whose powers are advanced enough to put them in fast-track classes and those whose powers are so feeble (one girl can turn herself into a ... guinea pig) they are placed ignominiously in a more basic program. That's where Will goes, until, ta-da, his latent powers suddenly materialize while he's being bullied by the speedy kid and the elastic kid, as well as torched by the flamethrower kid.

Mom and Dad — known to the world by their superhero handles Jetstream (Kelly Preston) and the Commander (Kurt Russell) — are thrilled, but Will's put-upon Sidekick pals, a scrubbed and multiethnic bunch, are not. In the most simplistic terms, the evils of Hero snobbery and the virtues of Sidekick humility are sung as the dweebish Sidekicks learn that you don't need superpowers to be a hero, that "We're just people" and that Disney demands medicinal morals with its fun.

"Sky High" is a slick engine that weaves around its determined predictability with bursts of wit and smarts. The fastidious, sometimes ingenious script, keenly orchestrated by director Mike Mitchell, crackles with laughs and charm. Everything is here, from gags to battering special-effects action, in just the right amounts.

While the teen actors are better than average, the adults sneak in a comic verve that supplies the movie welcome ironic bounce. Russell, a longtime contract player for Disney, makes a triumphant return to the studio's family-comedy line (1975's "The Strongest Man in the World" was my favorite), playing his Commander with jut-jawed, all-American dash. It's a sporting performance matched by small but inspired turns from self-mocking slapstick stud Bruce Campbell and "Kids in the Hall" veterans Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald, all three displaying rapier comic timing. Lynda Carter, Wonder Woman herself, plays the high school principal with a robust wink.

Too formulaic for perfection, this is still Disney's best live-action movie since "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Holes." It has a nice touch; it doesn't hector and it lets you breathe. It also might be the most charming movie I've seen this summer.