Sky High

Sky High appears to have been made by a group of people with neither any love, nor any knowledge, of comic book super heroes.

The story opens with a promising hook – that of a kid with no super-powers forced to blag his way through super-hero school. We see him desperately working out on weights at home to try to become the super-heroic child-prodigy that his parents dream of. However any possible originality that might have stemmed from this situation is quickly dispelled when he gets into a fight and, whilst quaking under a dinner-table, suddenly develops super-strength. Handy, that.

The really irritating thing is that it doesn't actually take super-strength to lift a teenager on a possibly lightweight table. We've already seen him working out on the weights earlier in the film, so all this initially suggests is that he's still faking it. In other words, they still needn't have thrown their great hook away so early on.

The rest of the plot is fairly by-the-numbers, and pays lip-service to the better-known super-hero clichés without ever really managing to parody them. The acting is generally lacklustre too, with most of the cast coming across as thoroughly disinterested. Of course, the ever-promising Bruce Campbell has cut his entire career out of playing parts that way, and as such he fits in well.

Fun? Mildly. Clever? Sorry. Funny? Well, maybe if you're not into super heroes.

One way in which I definitely wouldn't describe this film though, is bad. There's really nothing about it that stands out one way or the other.