Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow -- Rhinotainment

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Date Posted: 11:02:54 09/18/04 Sat
Author: Dog of War
Subject: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

So I saw Sky Captain last night, and my verdict of the film is a lot of cool stuff, and several major things that I didn't like.

First off, I'm a huge fan of these kinds of stories. I love pulp action and sci-fi stories from the 30's and 40's, and Golden Age comics, so I had very high hopes for Sky Captain. As you probably know by now, only the actors, costumes and a few props in this film are real, everything else is CGI, and it lends the movie a very cool look.

The plot of the film is pretty basic: an evil scientist has a plan for world destruction/domination, and is opposed by a heroic pilot and a plucky reporter. Giant robots and crazy sci-fi ray guns abound. The battle scenes are very cool, and there are movie references all over the place, riffing on everything from King Kong to The Day the Earth Stood Still to the Fleischer Superman cartoons of the 40's. Less satisfying are the performances. Jude Law is pretty good as Sky Captain, but Gwyneth Paltrow as his reporter Polly Perkins underacts badly. I suppose she was trying to pull off a tough, jaded New Yorker kind of thing, but there are some scenes when she seems downright bored by the things going on around her. Angelina Jolie is decent (and looks ridiculously hot in tight aviator's uniform and eyepatch) in a small role as a pilot compatriot of Sky Captain's, but doesn't really get much screen time to make too much of an impact.

My main problem with the film is that while many of the things being shown are very cool, they're just lacking a real WOW factor that I would have expected from this kind of film. At times it comes across like a really well done cutscene from a videogame: pretty to look at, sometimes very impressive, but ultimately rather shallow. Comparisons have been made between Sky Captain and Raiders of the Lost Ark (as both are based on serials from the 30's and 40's), but there really is no comparison. Raiders was thrilling, funny, featured great, engaging characters, and is a movie I never get tired of seeing. Sky Captain is technically far more dazzling, but there's really nothing there that would convince me to watch it again anytime soon.

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