Review of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) by Steve U — 26 Dec 2009

Something funny happened as I left SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW"; a little boy began running around the theater lobby exclaiming, "Sky Captain to the rescue!" His father rolled his eyes, saying the film was just "Ok.

" That, in a nutshell, is the problem with SKY CAPTAIN--you either love it or leave it. It has no pretensions but to be escapism, and if you can't watch it like a six-year-old, chances are you'd rather leave it.

There's no deep intellectual subtext here; this movie is about a long-lost era--the age of matinee serials, when a mad scientist could build gargantuan robots and only an ace fighter pilot could stop him and crack a sly one-liner.

If that isn't your cup of tea, then you'll probably be telling yourself the movie's just "Ok." But oh, is "Sky Captain" cool to watch. It says a lot about my taste, but this flick is the most fun to come out of Hollywood in recent years, largely because it's so unabashedly romantic and old-fashioned, with a superhero who isn't driven by some dark psychosis or a sociopathic need to kill.

The plot is a standard adventure: giant robots attack NYC, and Flying Legion pilot Joe Sullivan (Jude Law) races to the rescue in his modified P-40 Mustang, only to find the robots have been sent by the mysterious Dr.

Totenkopf (Sir Laurence Olivier, in a posthumous but effective performance). Totenkopf wants to destroy the human race, and our hero has to stop him. Along the way, he meets his old flame, feisty reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow), and they bicker endlessly until it's obvious the flame never died out.

Jude Law seems to channel Errol Flynn-meets-Han Solo, and it works; Sky Captain's a swaggering ironic hero. Furthermore, every character here is pastiche--classic homages to the larger-than-life legends your great grandparents grew up on.

Giovanni Ribisi plays a geeky sidekick, Michael Gambon a grizzled newspaper editor, and Angelina Jolie the secret agent squad commander. When George Lucas wrote STAR WARS in the 1970s, he had stuff like SKY CAPTAIN in mind, so anyone looking for seriousness here needs to realize it's about giant robots with death rays coming out of their chests.

The film amalgamates nearly every 1930s serial from BUCK ROGERS-style dogfights to an island identical to KING KONG, and watching Sky Captain engage in aerial chases through the canyons of Manhattan is a dream-come-true for the inner child.

Throw in a swashbuckling score by Edward Shearmur, who's REALLY playing up the Buck Rogers angle, and you've got action scenes that are a wonder to behold--thrilling, tongue-in-cheek, and amazing in how their computer generated imagery looks like a comic right out of 1930.

The filmmakers shot the actors in front of blue screens and then digitally superimposed the backgrounds and sets into frame; amazingly, it works, and the final film is even processed in sepia-tones, giving it a nostalgic, mythic appearance of fantasy.

If a criticism can be leveled against the film, it does tend to get too silly in its eagerness to entertain. For example, I can accept that the Captain's plane turns into a submarine (I mean, it's a movie about giant robots), but that it can submerge into New York Harbor at mach 5 without shattering into a million pieces is pushing it.

Particularly since the robots chasing it burst into fireballs the moment they hit the water. To create a unique cinematic world, one has to be consistent. SKY CAPTAIN isn't, and that keeps it from being a grand slam.

Still, those seeking a popcorn flick could do a lot worse. Try SKY CAPTAIN and escape to a time when American cinema wasn't so psychotically postmodern. If nothing else, watch the dogfights and pretend you're six again.

.. who knows? Maybe you'll even cheer, "Sky Captain to the rescue.".