Sky High is a 2005 American superhero family comedy film about an airborne school for teenage superheroes. It was directed by Mike Mitchell and written by Paul Hernandez, Robert Schooley, and Mark McCorkle. The starring cast includes Michael Angarano as Will, an incoming freshman at the school; Danielle Panabaker as his best friend; Kurt Russell and Kelly Preston as his parents; Mary Elizabeth Winstead as a popular senior; Steven Strait as Will's rival; and Lynda Carter as Principal Powers. Andrew Gunn produced the film for Walt Disney Pictures.
Plot[]
Will Stronghold (Michael Angarano) is beginning grade nine at Sky High, a high school which teaches super powered children. Will's parents are The Commander (Kurt Russell) and Jetstream (Kelly Preston), the world's most famous superheroes. Will's best friend is Layla (Danielle Panabaker), who has the power to manipulate plant life.
Will is anxious about attending Sky High, located on a floating campus reached by flying school bus, because, unbeknownst to his parents, he has not developed any super powers. The first day he and the other grade nines are harassed by a trio of bullies: the super fast Speed (Will Harris), Lash (Jake Sandvig) who can extend his body, and cheerleader Penny (Khadijah/Malika) who can create duplicates of herself.
Because of his lack of powers, Will is slated to enter a curriculum for "Hero Support" and become a sidekick. His classmates include Ethan (Dee Jay Daniels) who can melt into a fluid, Zach (Nicholas Braun) who glows in the dark, Magenta (Kelly Vitz) who becomes a guinea pig, and Layla who joins the class in protest against the two track nature of the school's education. The class is taught by The Commander's former sidekick "All American Boy" (Dave Foley).
The Commander, unaware that his son has been relegated to Hero Support, shows Will his hidden trophy room. He is particularly proud of the mysterious weapon "The Pacifier" which he took from his science themed arch-nemesis Royal Pain years ago. Unknown to either of them, Royal Pain, who had been presumed dead, watches the exchange from a hidden camera in one of the other trophies. As Will settles in to Sky High and makes friends with the other sidekicks he comes into conflict with fire wielding student Warren Peace (Steven Strait), whose supervillain father had been imprisoned by The Commander. During a fight between the two, Will demonstrates super strength, impressing Gwen Grayson (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a beautiful and popular "technopath" who controls machines with her mind. Will begins spending more time with Gwen and her popular friends, ignoring the sidekicks and Layla, who later reveals to Warren that she has loved Will for a long time.
On the day before the dance, Gwen tricks Will into throwing a party at his house, and she uses Speed to steal the Pacifier when she seduces Will into showing her the Secret Sanctum. After Gwen lies to Layla, who shows up to investigate the noise and believes the lie, Will breaks up with Gwen refusing to attend the dance even though his parents are going as honored guests. Later, he looks through his father's old yearbooks and sees a student who resembles Gwen. Believing that the student is Royal Pain and that Gwen is her daughter he rushes to the dance.
At the dance party, Gwen reveals that she is in fact Royal Pain. During her previous confrontation with the Commander, the Pacifier, which is meant to turn its target into an infant, had malfunctioned, turning her into a baby instead. She has since waited sixteen years for revenge. With the help of Speed, Lash, and Penny, she takes over the school and uses the Pacifier to turn the faculty and students into infants.
When Will arrives at school, he apologizes to Layla and teams up with Warren and the sidekicks to try and save the day. The sidekicks demonstrate their heroism after Royal Pain sabotages the school's anti-gravity drive and their powers come in handy restarting it. Will, meanwhile, discovers that he also has his mother's powers of flight when he is thrown off the edge of the school grounds and must prevent the campus from falling. Gwen and her henchmen are defeated and arrested and the faculty and students are returned to their proper ages. Will and Layla kiss and a voiceover at the end reveals that they become boyfriend and girlfriend.
Goofs[]
- When Steve tells Will that most students at Sky High have one super parent, not two, he holds up two fingers for "one super parent", and one finger for "not two".
- When the bus picks up Will at the start of the movie, he mentions the name of "Sky High" and the bus driver closes the door and admonishes him. When the bus is ready to leave, the bus driver closes the door again.
- On the first day of school when Will and Layla get on the bus they sit near the back by Zach, but when the bus arrives and Ron opens the door Will and Layla are the first to get off almost immediately after he opens the door. They even stop to talk to Ron and there is no one behind them waiting to get off.
- On the first day of school, the bus is shown driving on an unfinished bridge as a launching point for takeoff. While on the bridge trees can be seen in the background, and the bridge is about as high as the tops of the trees. When they launch off the end of the bridge, as the bus is transforming into a plane, there is a view looking down that shows them hundreds or even thousands of feet above the city.
- On the first day of school when Will and Layla get on the bus they sit near the back by Zach, but when the bus arrives and Ron opens the door Will and Layla are the first to get off almost immediately after he opens the door. They even stop to talk to Ron and there is no one behind them waiting to get off.
- When Principal Powers disappears through the gym door, the stage light is visible beneath and behind Coach Boomer.
- When Will is sent to the nurse, Nurse Spex was wearing a stethoscope around her neck, but when she turned sideways to put the equipment back, she turned to face Will again, and the stethoscope was gone.
- When Steve and Will go down to the Secret Sanctum, Will uses his mother's pole which is on the left. In the next shot, Will is shown coming down the right pole. The next shot was taken from the other side of the characters, from the Secret Sanctum. Therefore, they are still on the same poles, just the scene looks different.
- When Will and Steve are in the kitchen, he slams on the counter and the knives stay perfectly straight. In the next shot they are tilted for no reason.
- During the lunch room fight scene when Will is crawling under the tables the panes of glass shielding him from Warren's fire blasts are clearly visible, some even reflecting the fire's image.
- Will does not step on Medulla's foot in the mad science laboratory.
- During the "Save the Citizen" scene, when Lash is blown into the air, you can see the line behind him that lifts him.
- When Warren first walks up to Layla in the paper lantern, the water pitcher he's holding is hanging down on his side. But in the next shot he's holding it up in front of his chest.
- Warren's lips do not move in the over-the-shoulder shot of him talking to Layla in the Paper Lantern.
- At the Homecoming Dance, Mr. Boy offers Layla a drink. Lash reaches out and spills the drink on Mr. Boy's shirt, but there is still a good amount of liquid left in the cup. At the very next shot, however, when Layla is handing him a napkin, Mr. Boy's cup is completely empty.
- Steve raises his arms, clenches his fists and grimaces in pain before the beam from the Pacifier hits him.
- Will destroys the doors of Ron's bus. Moments later, Ron slides open the driver's window to watch Royal Pain's bus arrive. In the background it's clear that at least one of Ron's doors is intact.
- When Lash is searching for Ethan in the restroom, we see that there is at least one stall past the one he stops to look inside. In the following shot, his stall is up against the wall.
- Penny is supposed to be one person who has the power to multiply herself but when fighting Layla in the cafeteria you can pretty easily tell the difference between the twins who play her, their hair is parted a little differently and one is slightly shorter.
- After Stitches finishes loading the pacified heroes onto the bus, he is seen closing the back door on the bus. But when he goes around to the front door on the bus, the conveyor system has disappeared from behind the bus.
- When the school starts to fall, characters are shown being forced to the floor. In reality, they would have been against the ceiling.
- After Medulla says "Let's boogie!" and the group starts to dance, Freeze Girl can be seen dancing in the middle of the group. In the next shot, Freeze Girl is standing next to Warren.