Up, Up and Away (2000)
DIRECTOR: Robert Townsend CAST: Robert Townsend, Michael J. Pagan, Sherman Hemsley
With the Incredibles back to fight crime before dinnertime this weekend, Awfully Good Movies celebrates in honor of INCREDIBLES 2 by showcasing a lesser-known superhero family comedy in the Disney library: UP, UP AND AWAY, directed by and starring Robert Townsend! But even though this is the same Robert Townsend who broke racial barriers with his hit 1987 indie comedy HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE, we forgot to mention that this isn’t actually a Disney movie…it’s a Disney CHANNEL movie. Yes, now that Townsend is working with the same gang behind ZENON IV: ZENON TAKES SPACE MANHATTAN and DESCENDANTS 7: REVENGE OF THE DAUGHTER OF THE VILLAIN FROM “HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME”, he’ll surely give us that great superhero comedy which he had tried so hard to deliver beforehand with THE METEOR MAN. But judging by his half-assed performance in front of the camera–and his even more half-assed superhero costume–there wasn’t much heart that Mr. Townsend could put behind the camera either, what with a typically corny Disney Channel script from the future screenwriter of HANNAH MONTANA: THE MOVIE that just makes all the rejected superhero jokes which were deemed too corny for the SKY HIGH script. And don’t be fooled by the brief mentions of both Spider-Man AND Superman existing as characters in this film’s universe, because Disney’s a good decade away from buying up Marvel, and we’ve got a budget of $734.53, so we’re not gonna be mashing any comic book universes onscreen here. It may be an unfortunate turn in the career of such a promising director/performer, but at least it gave Disney Channel something to air in between all the reruns of GROWING PAINS and JETT JACKSON that weekend…and I suppose that counts for something.
Here at Awfully Good Movies, we’re perfectly fine with superheroes of all kinds, capes or no capes…
Special thanks to YouTube user ttipoopfinal for the VHS footage of the UP, UP AND AWAY trailer!