How The Game Is Played

Surprise movie of the season.

Shelley and I like to go to kid movies. Its silly, but sometimes its fun to relieve the very serious or silly but over-top-testosterone movies I usually go to see.

Tonight we went to see a movie with a tiny advertising budget. You could easily over-look it as its probably aimed primarily at pre-teens to teens. It's called Sky-High.

Here's a secret of Hollywood, as explained to me long ago by my mother who edited fan magazines in New York City during the tail end of the studio days. Ultimately the best advertising by far is word of mouth. After the first two weeks of a movie's run thats what will either pull people in or send them away and no amount of ad money will change it. A corollary of this is that if you see a movie that the studio is pouring tons of money into promotion of before it releases, one of two things is true. Rarely, it means they think they have a huge potential blockbuster they can turn into an "event." Far more often, they know it is a bomb and they are trying to maximize how many people go in the first two weeks before word of mouth kills it.

Conversely, sometimes a movie will come along that has potential but that the studio doesn't really know how to advertise. These "sleepers" they will often release with a minimal ad campaign hoping word of mouth will drive a decent success. The "sleeper" approach can often generate even better word of mouth as the folks who tell their friends about it really feel they have discovered something. Sky High IMHO is one of these.

Quite simple, we *loved* it. I would have to say its the second best super-hero movies I've seen this summer, right after Batman Begins. If you can imagine a classic teen-angst high-school sitcom crossed with a super-hero movie, then you have all the elements of Sky-High. What amazed and delighted us was how well the writers merged the two genres. The movie even managed a genuine surprise or two which, given the formulaic structrue of both genres, was down right amazing.

I'd talk about the great special effects but thats no big deal anymore. In this age of computer generated cinema just about anything that can be imagined cna be caught on film. (There is a rather cheesy computer generated robot and skyline in the openign of the movie but, somehow, that works stylistically for this film.) What really made this film work though was the quality of the script and the quality of the acting.

There are some big names in this movie (attracted I suspect by the script) who do a great job including Kurt Russel, Kelley Preston, and a perennial B movie favorite-- Bruce Campbell. For us old folks who will always carry in our hearts pubescent memories of Lynda Carter as WOnder WOman, she's also in this film as the school principle. The relative newcomers are also terrific, including the gorgeous Mary Elizabeth Winstead who bears more then a passing resemblance in this movie to Shannon Daugherty in Beverly Hills 90210.

If the formula at all apeals to you, then I'd say go. I'd take my pre-teen to this film as good perperation for highschool. Lots of typical teenage issues to discuss in this movie such as cliques, categories and social pressures. I think I'd like my teen to see it... but obviously not with Dad as that would be totally uncool

All in all its probably going to end up somewhere in the top 3 in my lsit of movies I saw this summer. Its not earth-shattering. Its not deep (except in a teen-problems sort of way), but its very well done and some good easy fun even for us adults.

.

Posted at 07:54AM Jul 31, 2005 by gameguy in Java  |  Comments[0]