Sky High

Sky High appears to have been made by a group of people with neither any love, nor any knowledge, of comic book super heroes.

The story opens with a promising hook – that of a kid with no super-powers forced to blag his way through super-hero school. We see him desperately working out on weights at home to try to become the super-heroic child-prodigy that his parents dream of. However any possible originality that might have stemmed from this situation is quickly dispelled when he gets into a fight and, whilst quaking under a dinner-table, suddenly develops super-strength. Handy, that.

The really irritating thing is that it doesn't actually take super-strength to lift a teenager on a possibly lightweight table. We've already seen him working out on the weights earlier in the film, so all this initially suggests is that he's still faking it. In other words, they still needn't have thrown their great hook away so early on.

The rest of the plot is fairly by-the-numbers, and pays lip-service to the better-known super-hero clichés without ever really managing to parody them. The acting is generally lacklustre too, with most of the cast coming across as thoroughly disinterested. Of course, the ever-promising Bruce Campbell has cut his entire career out of playing parts that way, and as such he fits in well.

Fun? Mildly. Clever? Sorry. Funny? Well, maybe if you're not into super heroes.

One way in which I definitely wouldn't describe this film though, is bad. There's really nothing about it that stands out one way or the other.

The Sarah Jane Adventures: Whatever Happened To Sarah Jane?

+++ contains spoliers +++

I feel so vindicated.

After all my concerns about the general low standard of scripts in the new Doctor Who series, along comes this show and proves all my higher expectations justified.

In this show, people remember what happened in all the previous episodes, characters don't suddenly come out with information that they couldn't possibly have known, and Doctor Who's rich mythology is embraced without the misplaced fear of ostracising new viewers.

Whatever Happened To Sarah Jane? is about a nameless being who changes Sarah's childhood so that she died, and another girl – Andrea - lived instead. 12-year-old Maria is the only person in the world who is protected from this new history. Of course, no-one is going to believe her claims that history has been changed.

As a result, we get a great juxtaposition between her perspective on events, and that of the people around her. Her long-winded arguments with her dad brilliantly bring out her helplessness to convince him that she's anything other than a child who's bizarrely playing-up. Inevitably she fails, and ultimately has to pretend to have made the whole thing up, simply because it doesn't fit-into her dad's preconceptions of the world.

The writer's understanding of the different character's perspectives of events is best summed-up by the resurrected Andrea's request to the nameless history-changing alien: "Please can you return that girl [Maria] to the way she was yesterday?" She remembers a version of Maria that we have never seen. A version of Maria for whom Andrea had always been alive. A version of Maria who, from her perspective, has suddenly been replaced by this apparently new one who remembers Sarah.

But just as you thought it couldn't get any more confusing, the alien then wipes Maria out from history too. This time it's only her dad – Alan - who remembers her. The same dad who's spent most of the day listening to her prattle on about an apparently non-existent woman called Sarah Jane. Now he's the one who finds himself trying to convince his own ex-wife that they've had a daughter for the past 12 years.


As he finally takes on-board that his now non-existent daughter hadn't been making the whole tale up, he has only the memory of her brief words about this "Sarah Jane" stranger to go on.

Who, of course, has still been dead for decades.

So then, just as it couldn't get any more head-spinning, the alien decides to wipe him out from history too...


Such a calculating tale comes as a massive contrast to the dumbed-down Revenge Of The Slitheen episode that opened this season. That had been such a mixed-up plot, spelt-out with spoken internal monologues, stone-age science and pantomime overacting just in case the viewers were too slow to understand who the villains were.

On the other hand, this well-thought-out story presumes that its viewers are as intelligent as the programme makers are.

Both stories are credited as written by the same guy - Gareth Roberts – but they both demonstrate such different attitudes towards the audience, that that actually seems unlikely. In my opinion, these two plots probably came from two different minds. An uncredited co-writer perhaps?

And here, Roberts isn't writing exclusively for kids either. He knows that, like the original Doctor Who series, this is actually family viewing. As such thirty-somethings like me get catered for too, as he sneakily makes the whole thing a prequel to Doctor Who's 1979 Key To Time season.

What? You missed that? Maybe you were too busy working out how it tied into Attack Of The Graske – the interactive special from 2005 that featured the Doctor talking to camera with two alternate endings a few Christmases back?

Basically, this is a tale that appeals to everyone. Kids who are following Maria's adventures each week. Their mums and dads who can watch it with them and see it all from Sarah's point-of-view. And big kids like me, who can unravel the unspoken implications that this alien is the Black Guardian from the Tom Baker / Peter Davison days. There's no clunky exposition of old episodes for new viewers, but the clues are all there to be found for those of us who care about the show's mythology.

That said, I have to admit that when Sarah's life-history was restored at the end, I was hoping for a quick flashback-sequence of Sarah's life to show us just what the battle had all been for, as there aren't that many TV characters with the requisite 30-years of footage available to do that with...





But hey – you can't have everything.

The story gets completely mixed-up at the end with regards to who remembers what, (particularly what Andrea's party-guests are doing at Sarah's house, not to mention why on Earth Andrea lives there in the first place) but there are so many great things in this one that I'm actually okay with that.

It's clever, silly, fun, and thought-provoking with it.

Only question now is, who's writing next week's episode? A lot hangs on that, and I rather suspect it will all boil down to whether or not Alan even knows who Sarah is.

And I also hope they make it clear whether or not any of the previous episodes have now taken place...

MYSTERY MEN

"We're not your classic heroes. We're the other guys."


This movie's really summed-up by the guy in the poster above who's holding all the forks.

Really – just look at those forks. Now look at that thoughtful expression on his face. You just know that this is going to be a film full of deadpan humour, a sense of fun, and a lot of cutlery getting thrown around in the name of justice.

(I'm a big fan of cutlery in action movies)

Mystery Men, based on the Dark Horse comic that I've never read, is brilliant start to finish. Noone in this film is a traditional Hollywood stereotype. Some of them, like Greg Kinnear's Captain Amazing, have clearly been conceived to parody such stock characters, but even Geoffrey Rush's evil Frankenstein Cassanova, avoids becoming a stereotypical parody. Or he avoided it when this film first came out in 1999 anyway - since then the post-modern superhero-parody genre has become a bit more commonplace.

After all, it's easy to write a superhero spoof. However this is a film that doesn't do anything the easy way. As a result we get treated to a collection of truly original underdog heroes, underdog because most of their powers are, ingeniously, no use at all.

For example, The Invisible Boy can only be invisible when no-one's looking at him. The Sphinx's 'power' is that he's "terribly mysterious." The Shoveler fights with a shovel. That's it.

The really appealing thing here, then, is that with a little imagination and blagging, any one of us could join this group and get by.

And these characters have certainly all got imaginations.

Night. Mr. Furious, the Blue Raja, and the Shoveller are sneaking across the lawn in front of the villain's lair.


Mr. Furious: Shh! Wait! Hear that? We must have hit a trip-wire. It could be a proton eviscerator heating up.
The Shoveller: It could be a cybernetic atom scrambler. They target moving objects.
The Blue Raja: It sounds more like a heat-seeking anthrax projection gun to me. Quickly, cover your mouths.
Mr. Furious: No, let's bolt! Come on!
The Shoveller: No! Don't move.
The Blue Raja: Don't breathe!
Mr. Furious:Let's bolt!
The Shoveller: Don't move!
The Blue Raja:Don't breathe!
Mr. Furious: Let's bolt!
The Shoveller: Don't move!
The lawn's sprinkler system turns on and the three are soaked.
The Shoveller: Oh, it's the sprinkler.

Not only that, but they argue, have no leader, argue, have no plan, argue, and they argue. Oh, and did I mention how much they argue?

The Shoveler: Oh yeah, well, maybe if we had a billionaire like Lance Hunt as our benefactor, then we could afford some advertising.
Mr. Furious: That's because Lance Hunt is Captain Amazing.
The Blue Raja: Oh, here we go.
The Shoveler: Oh, don't start that again! Lance Hunt wears glasses. Captain Amazing doesn't wear glasses.
Mr. Furious: [LONG-SUFFERING] He takes them off when he transforms!
The Shoveler: That doesn't make any sense. He wouldn't be able to see!

And they're believably incompetent too. The scene in which they all try to rescue Captain Amazing is brilliant in its stupidity. And with such a colossal number of quality one-liners, y'know, this might just be the most quotable film I've ever seen...

- "We are number one. All others are number two, or lower."

- "I don't need a compass to know which way the wind shines."

- "Death Man is dead."

The plot-holes are minor, and the late-90s CGI makes the whole thing look a bit reminiscent of Bedknobs And Broomsticks, but within this otherwise well thought-out world, none of those minor things matter much by comparison. The only element that lets the side down for me is the Spleen, whose super-power is his flatulence, but even he's quite likable as a character. By today's standards (as opposed to my old-fashioned ones) this is good respectful family entertainment.

I wish there was more.

BiLL & Ted's BOGUS Journey – MUSIC FROM THE MOTION PICTURE

Another album of extreme rock'n'roll fun, much like the movie these tracks supported.

There are a couple of artists who don't quite get the joke, for example the tracks Drinking Again and Dream Of A New Day, which by contrast with the rest are just depressing.

My opinion is probably symptomatic of having the lyrics to read through this time though. Conversely the Excellent Adventure album offered no such insight into the bands' intentions, allowing me to just tune into the music regardless of whatever the words may have been. On this album Primus' Tommy The Cat is indecipherable, while Dave Mustaine & Megadeth's intended title-track Go To Hell is, as the name suggests, really a celebration of Hell! Perhaps that proves they did get the film's joke...

My favourite one though, unsurprisingly, was Kiss' God Gave Rock And Roll To You II. This is the anthem that the movie powers into the closing credits on, and if you've seen the film then you'll know that it implies not so much a grand finale as a grand new beginning. (the dudes really do need to make a third film now) Every time I watch this film, I crank up the sound for the final act accordingly.

Here, far from being about Hell, the lyrics seem to really worship rock'n'roll itself as a religion...

you don't have money
or a fancy car
and you're tired of wishin'
on a fallin' star
you gotta put your faith in a loud guitar

The final final track of the film (the one that closes the closing credits, if that makes it any clearer) is also the final one on this album – Steve Vai's The Reaper Rap. I have to say that, back in '92, I didn't go much on this either in the cinema or on the radio, being as it is just a background to snatches of dialogue from the film. Here however it's welcome, reminding me of just why Herschel gave me the album in the first place, and allowing me to relive some of a movie that the middle of this CD seemed to have quietly forgotten.

Quite good! Quite good!

The Sarah Jane Adventures: Warriors Of Kudlak

A by-the-numbers tale which manages to be rather fun.

Free of Maria's parents, there's real room to get involved in the story, and towards the end I found I had let my guard down and started trusting the show. (perhaps because it was so obvious what was coming!)

And this is probably symptomatic of just how deliberately this show is aiming to be original Doctor Who in all but name. Quite apart from her sonic lipstick, wisecracking encounters and detective work, in this story Sarah Jane builds an eccentric-looking scientific device out of odds and ends, and starts rattling-off lots of complicated technobabble to Maria about how to operate it.


Sarah has obviously been taking some advanced science lessons since she first raised her eyebrows at Brendon's explanation of K-9's tristate bus driver in 1981. (or thereabouts)

She also claims to have had UNIT training, although as far as I know she's never been employed by UNIT.

Any suspicion that the author was faking familiarity with the character is outweighed however by the dialogue. This is Sarah in her element and, it must be said, Maria, Luke and Clyde all seem to be living for it too.

If the show keeps this standard up, then there's really no excuse for the one that's been going out on Saturday nights.

The Sarah Jane Adventures: Eye Of The Gorgon

I can't believe I was actually right.

When I reviewed the last story, I said that it failed on just about every count, but had terrific unrealised potential. In this – the very next story – the show exudes quality on all fronts.

The underacting is gone. Even better, the overacting is gone too! Clyde's suddenly a much deeper character, and nothing is dumbed-down for fear of the audience not understanding it. In the last story, the aliens camped the whole thing up so that we'd know they were the aliens. In this one the posessed nuns play the whole thing like, well, people. (TV nuns are always evil, I don't know why)

And it was a good story, too, without trying so hard.

Today, credit must go to a kids' show that is not afraid to feature elderly people and nuns as its main guest-stars, while at the same time delivering an exciting tale of battling aliens on earth.

Except that while this was transmitted on a weekday afternoon, like Doctor Who this just isn't a kids' show. It's a family show, aimed at an adult audience too. Sarah even refers back to her earlier adventures against the Sontarans, transmitted on the same channel when I was about three. This is a show with stuff under the surface to be unravelled.

But where this story truly excels is in the scenes between Maria's divorced mum and dad. There's so much that is just not spoken in these scenes, and Maria's blaming her mum, her dad and Sarah one after the other, never results in any of them patronising her, or us. There wasn't much of a message to this storyline, just an understanding that divorce produces lots of painful situations, to which there don't seem to be any solutions.


The effects were outstanding. Even the opening credits music had been rearranged to get rid of the overly post-modern ending. (was that a theremin last week?)


All this and alzheimer's disease too.

If there's a downside, then I guess it would be the nuns turning out to be yet more zombies, but that's so outweighed by all the great other stuff.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack CD

Right from the electric guitar riff on the start of the opening track - Play With Me - you know you're back in the world of Bill'n'Ted.

These are lively metal tracks, with no agenda other than to have fun. I recognised a few of them from the film, (and made the appropriate air-guitar gesture to go with them) but not many. This sure captures the movie's crazy, adrenaline-fuelled atmosphere.

Excelle... oh you know the rest.