Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

March 3, 2005

Rated: PG Runtime: 107 min Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Sky Captain is a live-action animated movie, though for some reason nobody ever talks about it that way. How else would you describe a movie with real actors but virtually zero props and not one single physical set? The entire thing was done in front of blue screens in order to achieve a consistent look and feel throughout the feature. For the most part this works exceptionally well.

Jude Law is Sky Captain, leader of a mysterious army that defends against the �bad guys �. Here’s our first problem� they aren’t that mysterious since everyone knows where their base is it seems, and there’s only one �bad guy� in the movie. Maybe they are just setting us up for a sequal. Anyway, Gwyneth Paltrow is the annoying reporter type named Polly Perkins (of course) who works for the Chronicle (of course) and who also happens to be the ex-love interest of Sky Captain (of course.) This entire movie feels like a �50s comic book. What? It was supposed to? Oh, that explains it then.

Polly is doing a story about a group of missing scientist when she’s contacted by a mysterious stranger claiming to know who the next victim is. She’s instructed to meet him at a theater that evening, and of course she does. They meet up on the balcony during the show and proceed to talk loudly about what’s going on, oblivious to the fact that THERE’S A MOVIE PLAYING, TAKE IT OUTSIDE!! Air raid sirens cut through the night and everyone rushes outside to flee down the streets.

Turns out that instead of airplanes, giant robots are attacking the city! Quick, light the bat signal! What? Oh, quick! Call for Sky Captain!

Jude sweeps in to save the day with his nifty airplane, saves Polly, then flies back to his base to check with his brainiac sidekick Dex (Giovanni Ribisi) about what’s happening. That’s a pretty good amount of action for the first 15 minutes of the film, and it just gets better from here.

Overall the story is quite compelling but it’s more the storytelling that makes this movie work so well. Once you get used to the visuals you are totally sucked into this world. Everything looks great and you’ll forget that it’s all animation. I’ve heard this compared to Indiana Jones in regards to it’s style, and while I understand the comparison I’m not quite so quick to agree with it. There is humor here, lots of it, and there’s a ton of action. But it doesn’t have that extra bit of �something� that puts it in the Indiana Jones league. If Paramount can keep costs under control they have the makings of a great new franchise here since they can always keep the �sets� consistent and maintain the sam e look and feel that people are enjoying.

If you like Sci-Fi/Action then you need to see this on the big screen, no question about it.

Posted by John | Filed Under 4 Stars, Action, Angelina Jolie, Bai Ling, DVD, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Michael Gambon, PG, SciFi