Sky Captain review

2004.09.26 — Entertainment | Movies | Movie Reviews | by Andrew Cole

Kerry Conran's labor of love, Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow, is a bit of an odd duck. With the 1930s setting and vintage sci-fi theme, it's right up my alley. The film looks great, has all the thrills and twists of a pulp potboiler, and appears to have been aged in expensive tea. But a funny thing happened on the way to the theater.... The film kind of lost its heart.

Altho it's set before World War 2, the characters mention "World War 1" several times. It's very odd. Before there was a second one, the first was just called the Great War.

First-time writer/director Kerry Conran got attention by creating 3-D computer-generated sets and producing a storyboard and software (the BBC has a good article on it) that would allow him to paste in live actors whenever he got them. I'm all for wild, creativity-run-rampant CG fantasy, and what's here serves the film well. The mechanical monsters are menacing, the villains are mysterious and powerful, the exotic vistas—from the concrete canyons of New York City to the mountains of Tibet—are sweeping. But it's all cool to the touch. With few exceptions, our heroes never seem to be in much of a pickle; they seem nearly as mechanical as the villains.

Jude Law is a classic Briton, with his stoic, understated manner, but he hardly inspires much emotion. You may admire his Captain Joe Sullivan but you won't get to know him well enough to like him. Gwyneth Paltrow is as lovely—and vapid—as usual (how do they create those fantastic blond tresses?). Angelina Jolie and Giovanni Ribisi take backseats to support.

Jolie is riveting... and given nothing at all to do (her character should have been named Frankie Calrissian). Even Ribisi gets more action. In fact, he saves Sky Captain's bacon a few times, including at the climax. Sky Captain may be the most-rescued hero ever in a single film. I count at least four, possibly five, times that our hero would have been lunch meat if it weren't for his friends.

The plot relates the story of how Sky Captain Joe Sullivan and his private army(?!) come to New York's rescue during an attack by giant robots and subsequently track down the villain behind it to foil his evil plan. Laurence Olivier plays the villain. I expected more from Olivier, but I suppose I should be satisfied, given the state of his health at the time of filming.

One problem with Sky Captain (perhaps I should start calling it World of Tomorrow, in anticipation of Sky Captain & the Zombie Savages and Sky Captain & the Pirates of Mars) is that it's a little too derivative. Its roots are showing.

There are moments in the initial battle with the giant robots that I practically had flashbacks to Empire and Jedi (no surprise then that a scientist lives in apartment 1138). The robots themselves remind me more of the great Max Fleischer Superman cartoons ("Mechanical Monsters," to be precise). The Mysterious Woman is not only reminiscent of other mysterious female villains, but shamefully similar to Karl Kroenen from Hellboy. The ending is a mathematical average of all James Bond pictures. Comparisons to Indiana Jones and The Rocketeer are likewise inescapable, tho less direct.

What all these films had that World of Tomorrow is lacking was humor... and chemistry. Law and Paltrow are cold fish, and Jolie and Ribisi are mere props. There are solid moments, as when Law and Paltrow are trapped in a room full of dynamite, but like every other scene, it is anti-climactic.

Ultimately, I never really felt engaged by the film, challenged by it, or even thrilled by it. Kids will probably like the film more because they won't see the similarities to past classics or the way the film bows to cliches instead of breaking them.

I kept waiting for a dramatic revelation. One comes, and it's a doozy, but it too is strangely anti-climactic. I'll probably give this film another chance when it comes out on video. Maybe I'll have softened. It just looks so good....

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