Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

This movie is a smörgåsbord of fantastic beautifully done imagery for fans of 1930/1940s sci-fi. It's everything you could hope for...armies of giant flying robots that shake the earth when they walk. A huge rocket ship, a P-40 that can fly underwater as well as in the air, ray-guns, and flying aircraft carriers are all just a few of the many imaginative treats in store.

Oh and it even has a well thought out plot and humor to boot. If I had to say one negative thing, it would be that I wish the film had been longer who knows when we will see the likes of it again.

If you love classic sci-fi and films from the 40s you can't go wrong with this visual masterpiece it's a modern day film treasure.

I had not read about the movie before watching it and was fascinated within the first several minutes and continued to enjoy it through to the end. This movie's unique look and feel is its primary vehicle.

If you are looking for a sophisticated plot, this movie was not made for you. The plot and acting were adequate enough to avoid ruining the visual picture. The makers applied a comic book feel to the movie that allowed for softer edges and sepia tones, both with the animated sets and the human characters. If a set does not look completely realistic, the viewer is not troubled because the set is consistent with everything you see in the movie.

Anyone who has ever edited video or worked with animation would have to appreciate the visual art and quality of this movie. Otherwise, it contains a decent story that would be worth watching at least once.

You won't find many movies with the look of 'Sky Captain', the film has a style that is all its own.

Apparently set in the 1930s yet featuring technology most of us associate with a time in the 2030s, 'Sky Captain' does a good job of blending the old generation with the new. I really did like the glossy look of the visuals.

The story is not overly deep and I would have loved to see some more backstory development for some of the main players, but for what it is,the plot is easy enough to follow along too.

Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow have great chemistry together here and I'm glad things between them stayed constant through the film. I could write more here, but I won't spoil the ending for those who haven't seen it.

Despite the fact I enjoyed "Sky Captain", I am still thankful these films are the exception rather than the rule. I still prefer films with real (or at least partially real) sets and shooting locations. I've read comments here about the quality of the acting in this film and that's a pitfall for so-called "Blue screen films". Even a great actor has a challenge when standing against a blue screen and pretending to respond meaningfully to something that's not really there. The acting here isn't down right corny, but I believe if the key players had more real surroundings to play off of, the performances would have improved. I also think Angelina Jolie's "Frankie" character deserved more screen time.

'Sky Captain' is an interesting experiment and certainly a movie that will hold your attention for 90 or so minutes (the movie is pretty short in comparison to other blockbusters).

So, if you're curious, check it out, you likely will get something enjoyable out of it.

You need to watch a couple of Science fiction serials of the 1930's and then you might understand. If they had had CGI available to them they would have looked like this. This is nothing more or less than a love letter to "Flying Disc Man From Mars" & "Flash Gordon." When you look at the story you have to understand that it is built around the model of films like "Radar Men From the Moon" and others of the genre, it is simple (for kids there for their Saturday morning adventure fix. You can't look at a serial like a grown up, not with that critical eye They was never meant for critics. They were made to make young fellows gasp at the villains and the cliff hangers, not to make you meditate on the state of the universe. If you wait for deep meaning, then you will be waiting a long time. "Sky Captain" takes us back to the days of "Hopalong Cassidy" and Gene Autry (Star of the first Scince Fiction Serial "The Phantom Empire.") If you can divorce your critical self, sit down with a box of popcorn and some Ju-Ju Bes and turn off the lights, let yourself be 8 again. Now...the pay off!

While my peers were racing to the movies to see such films as Pretty in Pink and Say Anything I couldn't wait to visit my grandparents' farm in southeastern Colorado. In my grandmother's antique cabinet in their 'playroom' were literally hundreds of tapes; movies staring the Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, and dozens of cliffhangers such as Mystery Squadron and The Adventures of Red Ryder . My love of serials is one of the few things I remember sharing with my father.

So when I was sitting in the theater and the first preview for Shy Captain and the World of Tomorrow came on I was transported back to the safety of my grandparents' home and the love I felt while watching old cliffhangers with my dad.

I was instantly in love with the movie, the beautiful quality of every frame that made the movie appear to be one beautifully illustrated comic book and, of course, the similarity to the campy sci-fi movies of the 1930's. I went home and immediately looked the movie up on the internet.

I was stunned to find out that this was the first film Kerry Conran had directed or written, and that Sky Captain was originally a six minute reel that producer Jon Avnet saw and wanted to turn into a feature length film. The movie itself was first storyboard with crude animation so that the actors would understand what was happening in their scenes since the entire film was shot in front of blue screen. Because there were no actual locations filming only took 26 days instead of an estimated 6 months.

When the movie opened on the 17th of September I was there for one the first showings. The theater was all but empty, only about twelve other people were there, all men, all in their thirties and all alone. I was truly shocked at the small turn out, what about this film had turned off so many movie goers?

The movie began and I felt like a little kid falling in love with movies for the first time all over again. The shuttle references to classic sci-fi movies of the 1920's, 30's and 40's littered the screen. References to King Kong, Forbidden Planet, and the comic book Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. were everywhere you looked. At one point Polly Perkins the feisty reporter played by Gwyneth Paltrow is talking to her editor on the phone saying, 'They're reached Sixth Ave… Fifth Ave…. they're a hundred yards away', a direct quote from Orson Welle's radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds. Even Star Wars was referenced when Joe 'Sky Captain' Sullivan played by Jude Law is instructed to land on the air carrier's pad 327, the same number the Millennium Falcon lands on in Cloud City. By far the greatest reference to past greatness is the appearance Sir Laurence Olivier, who died in 1989, as the villain Dr. Totenkopf, using CGI and archival footage Conran brings back to life one of our greatest actors.

I was in movie geek heaven, for about the first hour, and then my attention started to wonder. In a society of attention deficit the constant motion and flying from one scene to another and the quick, panicked, pace of this movie should have fit in, however I felt teased, as if I was only watching part of a movie, the part that would never have a conclusion. We receive through the dialogue what little character development the movie has to offer, which isn't much, and in the end no one grows, or changes, or even becomes deeper than a character in a commercial.

Looking back at the old serials I realize that the characters remained the same generic, two dimensional characters they were at the beginning, but the lack of development goes unnoticed in an action film less than twenty minutes long. Today the only programs we watch that are less than twenty minutes are situational comedies that parade a host of cardboard characters through redundant stories lines. A two hour long episode is too much, perhaps Kerry Conran should have stuck more closely to the serial format and released the movie in smaller segments, maybe then I would have remained entertained and in love with his homage to old cinema. We are a country that seems to forever be moving forward with little room to go back and even though we sometimes get nostalgic for a simpler film, or movie hero, it's not always possible to pull off with today's intellectual needs.