This Disney film is a likable mix of laughs and wacky action sequences so the studio can anticipate above-average business from family audiences and teens on dates.

Will (Michael Angarano) is the son of two superheroes, Commander Stronghold (Kurt Russell) and Josie Jetstream (Kelly Preston), who must save the world on a regular basis. His first day at his Dad's alma mater, Sky High -- a campus whose antigravity device keeps it suspended above the clouds -- Will must confront his worst fear: He has no apparent powers of his own.

The school is divided into a demeaning class system among heroes, kids with extraordinary power, and sidekicks -- youngsters who act as support for the heroes of the future. So for Will, his first day becomes a bad news/good news situation. The bad news is that he, along with his best friend and girl next door, Layla (Danielle Panabaker), whose beauty Will fails to notice, get lumped with the sidekicks. The good news is that the hottest girl on campus, senior class president Gwen Grayson (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), seems to have a thing for him. Which is bad news for Layla, who has a major crush on Will.

Will also discovers he has an arch enemy in Warren Peace (Steven Strait) -- as in War and Peace because the guy's a bit schizophrenic -- whose dad was put in jail by Will's dad. Eventually, Will must confess to Dad and Mom about his lack of powers, a conversation he no sooner has then he discovers he does have superpowers. (Something to do with late-blooming puberty, no doubt.) When Will transfers from sidekick to hero studies, the whole class issue becomes ensnared in the romantic triangle among Will, Layla and Gwen. Of course, Gwen has ulterior motives in her relationship with Will.

Adult figures on campus include Principal Powers, played by Wonder Woman herself, Lynda Carter; Bruce Campbell's Coach Boomer, his voice a sonic boom; Kevin Heffernan's bus driver, whose gung-ho spirit belies his lack of powers; and Cloris Leachman's amusing cameo as a school nurse with X-ray vision.

"Sky High" wins few marks for originality. A school for superheroes sounds suspiciously like the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series. And a family of superheroes does remind you of "The Incredibles." But the way in which the script mixes campus melodramas -- from cafeteria fights and detention to school dances and problematic romances -- with a world of superheroism becomes more amusing with each passing minute.

Angarano delivers just the right blend of earnestness, insecurity and moral indignation. Panabaker has a beguiling, intelligent presence on screen, while Winstead nicely suggests a cool femme fatale. Russell and Preston play their roles with nonchalant preening. Strait is allowed to develop the movie's most complex character, a sullen antihero with the makings of an actual hero.

The effects, sets and action is clumsy at times, but then you wouldn't want the movie to be slicker; the filmmakers could have overproduced this little comedy. By keeping things modest and relying on the ingenuity of the script, the movie stays enjoyable rather than becoming silly.

Brains, brawn and beyond'' goes the motto of Sky High. Of those three, guess which ideal dominates this harmless, tween-targeted cape-capade? Perhaps that's inevitable, considering our main character is awkward frosh Will (Michael Angarano), son of the Commander (Kurt Russell), a genial meathead strongman, and his gravity-defying soul mate Jetstream (Kelly Preston). Like all good superfamilies, they send their boy to Sky High, a supposedly competitive hero academy that's a bit too Disneyfied to be Hogwarts-cutthroat. The school is distinguished principally by its location several miles above the earth. (Now, that's busing.) At first, Will exhibits no ''hero'' powers, disappointing his dad, and he takes his place among the second-class ''sidekicks.'' Then he hits superpuberty and gets caught up in a teen caste system inflated to superheroic proportions. (The results are either Day-Glo cute or darkly Nietzschean, depending entirely on your own scars.) Naturally, there's a supervillain, and naturally, lessons are learned, mostly via brute force.

Reverse-imagineered from Spy Kids with a hint of the (ahem) incredible, Sky deals skittishly with that status question, ending on an ''I'm okay, you're okay'' note. Visually, it aims for Best Power Rangers Episode Ever, with a Styrofoam aesthetic that looks like it fell off a truck bound for Spencer Gifts. The flick is best in its bittier moments (watch for the stellar cameos), and there's nothing to trouble the tots. But parents beware: When American fantasies of excellence start looking this flimsy, you may get the sinking feeling that somewhere over India or China, there floats a Sky Higher.