Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
When gigantic robots attack New York City, "Sky Captain" uses his private air force to fight them off. His ex-girlfriend, reporter Polly Perkins, has been investigating the recent disappearance of prominent scientists. Suspecting a link between the global robot attacks and missing men, Sky Captain and Polly decide to work together. They fly to the Himalayas in pursuit of the mysterious Dr. Totenkopf, the mastermind behind the robots.
-
- Cast:
- Jude Law , Gwyneth Paltrow , Angelina Jolie , Giovanni Ribisi , Michael Gambon , Bai Ling , Omid Djalili
Similar titles
Reviews
You won't be disappointed!
So much average
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004): Dir: Kerry Conraan / Cast: Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Giovanni Ribisi, Angelina Jolie, Laurence Olivier: Exhilarating visual treat about future and opportunity. Filled with fantastic visual imagery from towering robots to hovering spacecrafts but its best asset is its film noir appeal giving it a black and white image with tainted colour. The world's top scientist disappear and reporter Polly Perkins is determined to crack the case. She is joined by aviator Sky Captain whose bravery knows no limits. Inventive storytelling with debuting director Kerry Conraan adding an interesting Noah's Ark reference where the villain aims to steal two of each animal to board onto a rocket. Jude Law is superb as the daring Sky Captain who dives head on into danger without thought or regret. Gwyneth Paltrow as Polly brings intelligence as well as humour particularly in the final scene in a joke regarding her camera. Giovanni Ribisi tries to crack codes while keeping contact with Sky Captain. Angelina Jolie as a daredevil fighter pilot complete with eye patch is a nice touch matching Sky Captain's daring enthusiasm ten times over. What is truly daring is the computer animated imaging of Laurence Olivier who has been deceased since 1989. He receives acting billing here, which is remarkable. Excellent adventure taking flight in its references to noir and old serials. Score: 10 / 10
It took ten years for Kerry Conran to get this film off the ground. By the time it finally did, it was one of the first-ever to be shot almost entirely on blue-screen soundstages, leading some to say that this film is a glimpse at tomorrow's world of filmmaking.As far as the end result goes, the film tries its best to capture that certain charm and magic of retro pulp adventure and sci-fi. The spirit and imagination is definitely there, as giant robots pummel cities with ray guns, and entire wings of planes and flying machines clash in midair. The film rolls along at an even and steady pace, with plentiful amounts of action, peril, visual wonder, and loads of homages to genre classics.Unfortunately, the experience is marred by a few things. Even though there are a lot of nifty vehicles, weapons, and ideas on display, the special effects are pretty bad, even by 2004 standards. They tend to look hazy and soft, and backgrounds don't seem to merge well with the actors. For a film that must be 90% special effects, it makes the whole film look gaudy. All the action scenes whiz by without leaving much of an impact, and the whole lot of them are underwhelming in the end.The most disappointing aspect is the storytelling. Weak exposition is used to string the characters from one big event to the next on a thin thread of a plot. I never even understood who the villain was and what the evil plot was, but it was some kind of excuse to send giant robots and flying bird-like machines out into the world, and launch a rocket from some lost island populated by prehistoric animals. What makes the plot most underwhelming, however, are the characters. The titular Sky Captain has no charisma or presence; he's pretty much just a fighter pilot with a vague history that garners respect from everybody else. He tries his best to match up with other action heroes like Indiana Jones, but at least Indy had personality, charm, charisma, and a tough struggle - Sky Captain does not. As far as the side characters go, the love interest (named Polly Perkins, who ironically is played by the same gal who would go on to play Pepper Potts) is rather bland and borderline unlikable. Really, Angelina Jolie's brief appearance might be the only character I found intriguing (and that might just be because the eyepatch is cool). Altogether, it adds up to a bland and shallow experience.Using all-digital photography and all-digital effects, the film looks soft, fake, and low-budget. Editing is okay; there is an over-abundance of transitions and overlays in the beginning, but the rest of the film is fine. Acting is rather weak and bland from the whole cast: Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow come off as a rather uninteresting duo. Angelina Jolie seems to be the only one who looks like she's having fun, with Giovanni Ribisi in close second as an on-again off-again sidekick character. Writing could have been much better; I suspect that more fine-tuning on the script could have produced a better story. Even though this film uses some imaginative and well-designed dieselpunk sets, props, and costumes, the weak special effects do little to make me really care for them. What few real-looking objects the film has are pretty decent, but the film overall looks almost too slick and too clean for its own good. Music didn't do much for me either.I wanted to like this film, but I can't help but to regard it as a bland misfire, thanks to its gaudy all-digital production, the wooden acting, and the weak story. It is worth seeing once for the gee-whiz factor; some people will love it, some won't. Unfortunately, I do not.2/5 (Entertainment: Marginal | Story: Poor | Film: Poor)
The opening credits of Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow promise exactly what the film delivers, a ripping yarn in the mold of Flash Gordon and Buck Rodgers, with all the suspension of disbelief that those matinée serials required of the viewer. The PG rating is the tell-tale that you should not expect plotting of Nolanian complexity, this is a kids' film, and if you treat it like that, it's good fun. There is the odd gaping plot hole, but there are also some nice touches, like the appearance of Laurence Olivier and a certain recurring camera device for example, which help counteract the patchiness of the jeopardy. If you can accept occasional failings such as the yawning chasm in the lack of resolution of the research subject scene, this can be an enjoyable romp with a watchable cast.
Simply awful, what has started as a very promising movie with some nice new sic-fi ideas ended up as one of those Cheeseburger/Cowboy movies, full of clichés and non-logical events, dialog (oh specially that one, it simply can't get worse) and even story, that can't be considered Sci-Fi, it is a cheeseburger rubbish.The super cowboy who is super self confident and super brave and super "in control" who is also supposed to be super funny is - again - saving the world, of course while saving his own girl who is also super confident, super smart, super funny, and she is fighting entire armies without even breaking her high heals shoes !!! amazing ... keep on that Hollywood ... another 1 out of 10 movie, just because zero is not available.