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Writer-director Kerry Conran's debut, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, seems to have everything. The writing is delightfully campy and tongue-in-cheek, the acting is solid, and there's a deliriously wonderful visual sense abundant in each frame. Too bad it just seems to have everything. The film is built on a simple, yet excellent premise that hearkens back to the old days of the classic movie serials. In the year 1939, a purportedly golden age in cinema, a reporter by the striking name of Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) finds herself wrapped up in a tangled web of mystery involving missing scientists and world annihilation (with a scientist whose performance has been neatly pieced together by old footage of Laurence Olivier). When New York City and the rest of the earth finds itself under attack from giant mechanical monsters far advanced from any known technology, the help of the heroic Sky Captain (Jude Law) is called upon. Even Sky Captain himself can't defeat the machines, leading him and Polly on a globe-spanning adventure to get down to the bottom of things and to save the world from perishing. With a stylish look, decent acting, and a delightful story, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a more interesting failure than most. It's got all of the right ingredients, but very early on in watching the film, I noticed that something was missing. It took me a while to put my finger on it, but I finally figured it out. Sky Captain is full of exciting visuals, yet it doesn't seem excited to show them to us. It's got some interesting, fun ideas, but it does not seem interested in telling the audience about them. For all of the wondrous things going on, there is a remarkable lack of wonder. The amazing things happening, including gigantic robot invasions, full-scale machine warfare, and the discovery of a certain nifty submersible technique that Sky Captain's plane has, seem less than amazing in execution. It's like Kerry Conran had the conceptual ideas down, figured they were enough, and shoved his tricks out in a very cookie cutter-esque fashion. The robots aren't the only mechanations fumbling around and suffering terminal shutdown. Some of the better examples of full-on homages are Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and, to be very recent, the Kill Bill sagas. Each of these has something that Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow lacks in every sense. Though each of those films have scenes lifted almost directly from some other source, they each tell their stories in unique, engaging fashions that prove to be extremely entertaining. I almost wish that Sky Captain had been made in the late 80's, and was directed by George Lucas or Steven Spielberg or Tim Burton. At least then it could've had some fun with itself. The entire movie seems to scream, "Hey, this is pretty cool; we might have some toys on the way, wanna buy 'em?" There is a lack of spirit, incredibility, amazement, or even much fun in Sky Captain's goings-on. While watching all of the many elaborate, complex, loud, noisy, and surprisingly dull action sequences, I kept thinking of how Conran could've improved upon them. There were much more interesting ways to shoot all of it, and much more engaging ways of showing things. Speaking of the film's excellent appearance, it's only excellent until we realize that it's overshadowing everything else, including the actors' performances. When Polly runs across the street almost being trampled to death by robots, it's kind of embarrassing...the computerized backgrounds and creatures look great by themselves, but when trying to merge with real flesh and blood, it looks quite cringe-worthy. That's another of the film's problems. It's on CGI overload unlike almost any other flick you've ever seen. Granted, it's intriguing, well-made CGI, but there's just so darned much of it that a considerable portion of the movie turns out fake. To change a small pile of crap into a rather fair-sized pile of crap is the mind-boggling inclusion of Angelina Jolie. Gwyneth Paltrow is a wonderful actress, and Jude Law is tolerable, but Angelina Jolie? Her popularity and praise has baffled me in every movie she's been in after Girl, Interrupted. She's not sexy, she's not even pretty, and most importantly of all, she doesn't have any real apparent ability. So, like always, she rolls out her same "Don't ask me how I got this job" routine, looks like a man with her 1940's soldier haircut and eyepatch, and, once more, her head seems to be swallowed and devoured by those humongous lips of hers. That said, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow has its good moments. When it finally does become entertaining and rewarding, it's almost over; this would be when Polly and Sky Captain trek through the jungle and partake in hilarious ex-couple banter. --Full review at REELPICKS.CJB.NET-- email this review to a friend
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