Action & Adventure Pick: Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow (2004)
Sometimes a movie comes along that’s full of problems, but for some reason just works on enough levels that any shortcomings are forgivable and fall by the wayside when looking at the film as a whole. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is one of those movies.
Sky Captain came out in 2004 and was met with generally favorable reviews, but flopped on arrival, earning only $58 million against a $70 million budget. No studio wanted to green-light the film because it had an unusual premise, was from a first-time director and required extensive computer-generated graphics. At the time, few films relied on as much CGI as Sky Captain, which was shot entirely on a “digital backlot,” with the actors standing in front of blue screens for the duration of the shoot. Sometimes that approach can fail miserably (I’m looking at you, Star Wars prequels!), but every now and then things just work out.
The film takes place in an alternate 1939, and tells the story of a brash adventurer named Joe Sullivan (Jude Law) and a newspaper reporter named Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow), who must track down the mysterious Dr. Totenkopf (Laurence Olivier), whose mission is to build “The World of Tomorrow.”
[zergpaid]Sky Captain owes many of its aesthetic touches to the action/adventure serials of the 1940s, pulp comic book and science fiction heroes, art deco, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Rocketeer, and steampunk styles. Some of the visuals don’t quite hold up to today’s standards, but that somehow adds to the film’s charm. It’s almost as if it is slowly becoming part of the genre that it was paying homage to with each passing year.
Apart from the technical stuff, Sky Captain is a ton of fun, and has some truly great pulpy moments and performances. Angelina Jolie and Giovanni Ribisi stand out as wonderfully stylized and entertaining characters, and Law stands out as a leading man, a role he doesn’t quite play as often these days.
All in all, I can’t recommend this film enough, and have always had a special place for it in my heart. It’s not that often that we get films that are just pure joy, bursting with energy and creativity, that are filled to the brim with imaginative ideas and visuals. It may be a novelty in today’s age, but man, is it fun to revisit.
