Sky Captain & The World of Tomorrow

SKY CAPTAIN & THE WORLD OF TOMORROW (PG)

D: Kerry Conran

Paramount/Brooklyn Films II/Riff Raff/Blue Flower/Filmauro (Jon Avnet, Marsha Oglesby, Sadie Frost & Jude Law)

US 2004

106 mins

Action/Adventure/Science Fiction

W: Kerry Conran

DP: Eric Adkins

Ed: Sabrina Plisco

Mus: Edward Shearmur

Jude Law (Joseph Sullivan), Gwyneth Paltrow (Polly Perkins), Angelina Jolie (Cmmdr. Francesca Cook), Giovanni Ribisi (Dex)

To call Sky Captain & The World Of Tomorrow an admirable failure would be both harsh and true, for the revolutionary technical achievements are let down by a rather mundane, by-the-numbers plot.

Set in an alternative, technology advanced 1939, New York City is attacked by huge robots and America's best chance for a saviour is Joseph Sullivan, the titular Sky Captain, whose private Air Force, the Flying Legion are put into action. 

The plot feels very much recycled from superhero movies of the 1990's (notably The Rocketeer), though the visual style of the film can by marvelled at, since the entire production was filmed in a green screen environment, without physical sets (a technique perfected by Sin City (qv) a year later), although the glazed colour grading here can be a little headache-inducing after a while.

It's unfortunate that the film was a box office flop, it isn't a terrible watch, it's just a good example of a film which failed to find its audience.

5/10