SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW (2004)
Tagline: The world will tremble this September!
(Adventure, Mystery, Action) [PG]
Damn it! I didn't sabotage your lousy airplane!
In this one, we go back to 1939 where New York and other cities in the world are getting their power generators stolen by giant freakin robots. Meanwhile, famous scientists are also slowly disappearing and the only one that seems to give a crap is Polly Perkins (played by Gwyneth Paltrow, who is famous for being in the IRON MAN series but has a ton of other credits as well). She ends up seeking the help of Sky Captain (played by Jude Law). He’s basically the best pilot out there and he’s part of an elite team of mercenary pilots that seem to be trying to do the right thing. They are also backed by some crazy British flying machines and essentially an entire army lead by Franky (played by Angelina Jolie). Can they find the source of these huge machines and the powerful forces that seem to be guiding them in time to save the world from a madman bent on creating a utopia on another planet?
First off I will say this movie is and was incredibly unique for its time. They used a unique combination of Adobe After Effects Plug-ins applied to achieve the look they were going for and that is all meant to resemble 1930’s-ish serials. This also meant that the entire movie was shot against a blue screen. Originally the director wanted to film the whole thing in black and white and to be honest I kind of wish they had a black and white version out there. It’s just all pretty cool looking but it clearly wasn’t’ for everyone. The movie ended up making well under what it cost to produce. What they achieved on screen was actually pretty impressive for a $70 million budget.
Acting-wise this is a good solid outing for both Law and Paltrow. I want to say Jolie was good, but we really don’t see her very much. For me, the story was intriguing enough but this movie suffers from EMPIRE STRIKES BACK syndrome. What I mean by that is that what should have been the climax of the movie is actually close to the beginning of the movie and overall the story and action sequences kind of go downhill from there. This isn’t to say the mystery side isn’t interesting but I found the climax less “startling” than “oh geez, really”.
While I love the nods to yesteryear and a bunch of stuff they put in this as well as Paltrow and Law’s playing off one another it’s not enough to repair a lot of the slower parts to make me say this thing blew me away. What I can say is that it’s a very interesting movie that is worth at least one really good watch. I say that because this is a movie best not watched while you are doing something else. It took me more than one viewing to really embrace all of the nuances, dialog, and tricks they put in this. They even found ways to sneak both Godzilla and King Kong's direct references in this.
I have to give this one a 4 out of 7. It’s not a 3 and not quite a 5, so that’s what’s going on with this thing.
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