Susan Granger: "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" (Paramount Pictures)
Talk about comic-book movies! Visually imaginative and inventive,
the
live-action in this uniquely retro sci-fi adventure was entirely filmed
against
blue screens, so keep in mind that everything but the actors are
computer-generated images.
Set in the Art Deco futurism of New York in 1939, Joe "Sky Captain"
Sullivan (Jude Law), a Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers-type aerial ace teams up
with
plucky reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow, dressed by Stella
McCartney),
intrepid British air commander Franky Cook (roguish Angelina Jolie with an
eye
patch) and Dex Dearborn (Giovanni Ribisi), his enterprising mechanical
engineer, to save the world when six eminent German scientists
mysteriously
disappear and gigantic robots crush Midtown Manhattan. All the clues point
to
the dastardly, megalomaniacal Dr. Totenkopf (that's German for "Death's
Head,"
a subtle reference to the late, now-digitally resurrected Laurence
Olivier) and
his agile enforcer (Chinese actress Bai Ling).
First-time feature film-maker Kerry Conran, created a revolutionary
high-tech CGI program that enabled him to shoot the entire movie with a
3-D
storyboard of each scene in his computer. Which means that the opening
image of
a massive Hindenberg III dirigible docking atop the Empire State Building,
Joe's P-40 Warhawk and Totenkopf's war machines are all vivid figments of
Kerry
Conran and his brother Kevin's limitless imagination - with credit due to
"Metropolis," "Shangri-La," "Wizard of Oz" and a crew of nearly 100. Six
years
work and $70 million paid off. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Sky
Captain and the World of Tomorrow" is a slick, super-stylish, nostalgic 8,
a
vintage, high-flying, pop-culture adventure for the whole family.
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X-RAMR-ID: 38644
X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 1320727
X-RT-TitleID: 1136138
X-RT-SourceID: 742
X-RT-AuthorID: 1274
X-RT-RatingText: 8/10
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