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Movie: Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow
Starring: Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie
Written & Directed By Kerry Conran (Paramount)
Reviewed by Rusty Pipes
Calling Sky Captain, Calling Sky Captain! Your movie is overloaded with style and probably won't fly past the second mile marker, I mean past the second weekend. Abort, abort!
Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow is basically an old Republic serial, but produced on a budget inflated to the size of a zeppelin. It would have been fun drawn out in the pages of Heavy Metal but on the big screen it's really stretched.
It's not for lack of effort on the part of the A-list cast, featuring Jude Law as Ace Aviator Sky Captain, Gwyneth Paltrow as plucky reporter Polly Perkins and Angelina Jolie as Brit Sky Commando Franky Cook. The three have to struggle with both their comic book lines and against Dr. Totenkoff, an evil scientist (naturally) who is both kidnapping scientists and snatching electrical dynamos with his force of giant robots and huge manta-ray-like fighter planes. Note to the good, er bad doctor, um, couldn't you just have your robots BUILD the friggin' dynamos?
But don't worry, we're casting reality to the wind here. Prepare yourself for Sky Captain's amazing P-40 Tomahawk (complete with the painted shark's mouth that was only seen fighting the Japanese in China years later). Look! It can shoot grappling hooks to bring down the robots! And it can retract its propeller to double as a submarine! Not to be outdone, Franky's Brit comrades are based on flying aircraft carriers, and their planes aren't just Spitfires! No, they're these racy swept wing jobs that can become submarines too! Plus there's a giant silver finned rocket ship about a mile high, ray guns and a mysterious female assassin and all manner of... oops, guess they left out the human interest. There are a couple of attempts at humor, mostly in the running joke about Polly's photography skills, but all the color has been drained out of the plot, much like Conran's high contrast approach to the cinematography, mimicking the black and white featurettes from which he takes his cue.
Come to think of it, Conran's stylish vision in Sky Captain reminds me more of the sci-fi classic Things To Come than the Republic serials. It was the biggest budget science fiction film of the 30's; the airships and rockets were all art deco just like this and the special effects were the best of its day. Likewise, The World of Tomorrow is beautifully realized -- the CGI visuals are truly stunning, some of the best ever -- but unlike the Utopian vision in Things To Come, when Dr. Totenkoff's evil designs are defeated, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is just another self-involved action flick that offers very little heart.
The Skinny:
Am I glad I saw the movie? Sci-fi in 30's drag will do for an afternoon's diversion.
Would I go to see it again? Not unless there's a three-way nude love scene added for the DVD.
© 2004 - Rusty Pipes