Capitão Sky e o Mundo de Amanhã

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.

I'll be the first to admit it. I went into 'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow' with a lot of trepidation and even loathing. I didn't like the direction that cinema was taking with this film, featuring a backdrop that was mostly digital, because being a film purist, I used to relish the feel of actual celluloid in my hands, so this 'fake' creation was disturbing. I am still wary of this possible trend, but after seeing 'Sky Captain', I found that art can be realized in this medium.

'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow' not only boasts one of the longest film titles in recent months, but a great cast: Jude Law as Joe 'Sky Captain' Sullivan, our hero, Gwyneth Paltrow as Polly Perkins, our intrepid reporter and Sullivan's former flame and Angelina Jolie as Capt. Franky Cook, a friend and ally of Joe's. There is an evil element threatening the Earth, and it is up to Joe and Polly to find out who is behind the threat, before Earth is destroyed.

One line is all it really takes to sum up the story, which is generally all it took to summarize the films 'Sky Captain' pays homage to. The story is good, and it certainly boasts one of the most entertaining endings that I can remember in recent years, but it is the presentation that is the biggest draw with 'Sky Captain'. The overall style is 1930's Art Deco mixed with bits of Neo-Futurism. The robots in the first half hour of the film look like something out of comic book, the clothes and character styles are most certainly inspired by the 1930's, and the backdrops and locations are very Deco. It's obvious that one of the advantages in producing a film in this manner is that the filmmaker can be as elaborate in design as possible, because the 'set design' was very rich and exciting.

As a lover of classic film, I found the numerous nods to the films of the 30's very refreshing. Several scenes or lines could have been construed as corny, but I found them to be presented with a giant wink at the audience. Because all of these aforementioned elements were done so well, this film was a huge success in my opinion. And despite my concerns (which are still prevalent in my mind) I can sincerely rave about and recommend 'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow' to just about anyone who appreciates both art and good entertainment.

--Shel

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.

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.

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!