Sky High

Finally saw Sky High over the weekend. It was a fun little movie, although I think it's interesting to contrast this movie's approach with The Incredibles. Both are superhero movies, and both are ostensibly for juvenile audiences, but both try in their own ways to appeal to adults as well.

The Incredibles did this by having a storyline that would appeal to the emotions of parents: the drudgery of work, the temptation of the affair, the terror of kids in danger, the primal bond when the family works together. This was a story that appealed to adults, on different levels, just as much as kids.

Sky High, on the other hand, takes a different tack. The story is a by-the-numbers coming of age story with a little good girl/bad girl romance thrown in. But the movie is designed to appeal to parents on a nostalgic level. The entire soundtrack consists of covers of Eighties New Wave. Off the top of my head, I remember songs that were originally performed by English Beat (2 of 'em), Modern English, The Cars, The Go-Gos, Devo, Thompson Twins. And the supporting cast contains a bunch of familiar faces: Bruce Campbell, Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald from Kids in the Hall, Cloris Leachman, Lynda Carter (Wonder Woman herself).

So it's a shallower film, but still a fun one. I ended up watching it a couple of times through.