8. Sky High (2005)
On the surface,
Sky High looks like the worst kind of Disney-charged kids' movie - loud and colourful, broad and generic, like a superhero
High School Musical - you know, without the lame songs. You could be forgiven for thinking that this was still a load of old tosh having actually watched part of the movie, too, but you'd be wrong to condemn it entirely without sticking it out to the end:
Sky High is, surprisingly, a pretty great movie, and - a times - a genuinely interesting deconstruction of superhero tropes. The story is kind of Harry Potter-ish, in that it concerns a kid whose parents are the most famous superheroes of all-time (one of whom is Kurt Russell, excellent here) as he enrols at a school for superheroes. And although on the surface this flick stinks of the Disney machine, delve deeper and you'll discover a movie that is aware of all its cliches, and purposely sets out to embrace and parody them. I mean, it's still cheesy, but the sense of knowing that carries through the movie makes it bearable.