SUPERDOOPER

REVIEWED - SKY HIGH: After the mighty Incredibles, any comedy focusing on the suburban travails of ageing superheroes is going to seem a little redundant, but Disney's Sky High does an impressive job of blending the concerns of the high school comedy with something more fantastic.

Siding firmly with life's sidekicks - or "hero support", as the politically correct underlings now insist we call them - this broad entertainment manages to be decently moral without coming over all goody-goody.

The Commander (Kurt Russell) - strong, square-jawed - and Jetstream (Kelly Preston) - curvy, gifted with the power of flight - spend their downtime selling real estate and mowing the lawn in a classically bland Hollywood suburb. As the film begins, their son is just about to start his first day at a special high school for young superheroes. It floats above the clouds. It?s called Sky High. Boom, boom!

It soon transpires that young Will (Michael Angarano), shy about discussing sensitive matters with his super-folks, has an embarrassing secret: he has yet to develop any powers. The parallels with certain problems that accompany puberty are there to be made, but are sufficiently underplayed to escape detection by irony-challenged fundamentalists. Faring badly in his assessment with teacher Bruce Campbell, during which cars are dropped on the students' heads, Will is sent among the sidekicks.

Though it is packed with amusing in-jokes - the school principal is played by Lynda Carter - Sky High will probably suffer at the box office for the crime of not being that Pixar film. That would be a shame. Though no classic, it provides an attractive option for families unable to get into Wallace and Gromit.

Directed by Mike Mitchell. Starring Kurt Russell, Kelly Preston, Danielle Panabaker, Michael Angarano, Lynda Carter, Cloris Leachman, Bruce Campbell PG cert, gen release, 100 min