SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2004 David N. Butterworth
*** (out of ****)
It started life as a black-and-white tribute to those creepy
science-fiction
thrillers of the 1950s, a slew of "It Came from..." wherever flicks that
played
upon our then paranoid fears of nuclear annihilation, precipitated by
Orson
Welles' infamous "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast that panicked an
already
panic-stricken nation.
Then they colorized the newspaper ads and the TV spots and the
interstate
billboards, much like media mogul Ted Turner did with his Network
Classics.
And then they went and hand-tinted the whole kit and caboodle, no
doubt
fearful that kids today were going to start hurling rotten tomatoes at the
projection
booth figuring something was amiss up there. (Right. Like Jet Li's "Hero"
tanked
at the box office because teenagers were too lazy to read the words at the
bottom
of the screen. That film's currently playing at a real live *drive-in* for
all
under heaven's sake--just how youth-accessible is that!?)
Which makes me wonder that the heck happened. Was "Sky Captain and
the
World of Tomorrow" *ever* a monochromatic movie, or did nervous execs
simply
do the dirty color coordination job at the eleventh hour? I tell you this
film
was meant to be color-free. It looked good that way (at least from the
previews)
and the subject matter clearly demanded it. I don't need to see Jude Law
in
a colored flyboy jumpsuit or Gwyneth Paltrow under a fetching colored
fedora
and I don't need to see Angelina Jolie sporting a colored eyepatch (even
if
it *is* black).
But the moneymen at Paramount Pictures apparently do.
It's 1939, "King's Row," "Wuthering Heights," and "The Wizard of Oz"
adorn
the movie marquees, and a scoop-happy reporter, Polly Perkins (Paltrow),
wants
her story. Faster than her Leica shutter clicks air raid sirens serenade
the
arrival of massive metal monsters from the skies. Who y'gonna call? Why
mercenary
fighter pilot Joe "Sky Captain" Sullivan of course!
Sky Captain (played by Law with a nod and a wink) flies a Spitfire
with
tiger shark teeth painted on the fuselage. He's part Superman, part Flash
Gordon,
all Adventure. Joe and Polly team up, sort of, to investigate the
whereabouts
of eleven missing scientists, two mysterious vials, and a rogue doctor
named
Totenkopf who, it would seem, has some diabolical doomsday device up his
sleeve.
About 20 minutes from the end of this adventurous romp the mood is
upset
as Sky Captain morphs into a Jurassic Park/Indiana Jones/James Bond/Matrix
clone.
It literally becomes brighter and more focused, neither one of which are a
good
thing since they undermine the painstakingly crafted look of the piece.
Until then, "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" looked lovely in
all
its sepia-enriched, fuzzy-focused glory, with the CGI not quite as
overwhelming
as usual, oddly enough. Because the players look and sound very different,
and
that's enough to keep us charmingly distracted. And the
filmmakers--writer/director
Kerry Conran for the most part--get the period tone exactly right, from
the
huge close-ups to the off-center camera angles to the snappy front-page
banter
of Polly's fast-talking dame.
Oh yes. And apart from our protagonists and possibly one or two
others
(including Giovanni Ribisi as inventor Dex Dearborn and Michael Gambon as
Polly's
editor), the whole thing, believe it or not, was put together on a
computer.
--
David N. Butterworth
dnb@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
beef? Visit "La Movie Boeuf"
online at http://members.dca.net/dnb
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X-RAMR-ID: 38772
X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 1326863
X-RT-TitleID: 1136138
X-RT-SourceID: 878
X-RT-AuthorID: 1393
X-RT-RatingText: 3/4
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