Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Why pretend I'm doing something new when everyone around me is pretending the same thing? Why not admit that everything important has already been done and film a fun and naïve retro with futuristic tricks, endearingly terrible acting performances, the atmosphere of old comic books and the plot of the most hilarious trash? Conran managed to do it really well... His Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a well-balanced mix of retro (everything listed above) and modern technical procedures with a special atmosphere of colorized movies, old photos and comics. If there was even more humor and perspective, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow would be almost flawless, closely related to the similarly conceived Indiana Jones trilogy. The way that it is, it is sometimes spoiled by an excessive insight into its own visual perfection and a lack of distance from the triviality of the story. But it still functions as a spectacle, it’s almost a schematic parody, it’s infectiously entertaining, adventurously wild and cheerfully picturesque. Conran and his team’s attempt to achieve retro works on almost all fronts (the editing, acting, directing, soundtrack, artistic stylization) and if you accept it, you will see one of the most entertaining films of this season. Even with all the naivety, it’s much more intelligent than 99% of the adventurous production made in Hollywood. By the way, isn't it symbolic that entering the new visual age of the film is happening through a designer return to the immortal years of the 1920s and 1930s? (11/05/2004)

No matter how I look at Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, it always looks perfect. The actors. The visuals. The retro atmosphere. The funny script and funny dialogues. Ubiquitous fantasy. Shearmur's music. What we have before us is a much underrated gem that combines the adventures of a gentleman named Biggles with the fun of Star Wars and the imagination worthy of Karel Zeman with a nostalgic tear in the corner of the eye. Five and never otherwise. (08/25/2010)

A deliberate essence of stupidity. I can’t understand why anyone would want to make something like this and why anyone would want to watch it. As an attempt at naive retro sci-fi it’s successful, as a film for the 21st century viewer is an epic fail. Listening to most of the dialogues felt like slow, painful death; if the film was half an hour longer, I wouldn’t have been able to write this review. (08/04/2010)

A lot of blinking, lively dialogues, and one big toy that I can't play with. Jude Law is forever a character actor for me, who has nothing in common with a smiling action hero, and the cold Angelina is pure agony this time. The only significant advantage is that something is constantly moving, breaking, or flying on the screen, but in terms of how much was said about the film during its creation and how the creators boasted about it being a historic milestone, it quickly deservedly fell into oblivion. (09/11/2007)

Yes, the film has a weak story. But to criticise it for that would be like being upset at the lack of dinosaurs in Schindler’s List. Because Sky Captain is pure fan pleasure whose main asset is what Star Wars has, which is something that 90% of current Hollywood productions lack. Sky Captain is a beautiful tribute to old movies, with pleasant humour, great heroic music and likeable protagonists (Jude Law and Angelina Jolie are excellent; only Gwyneth Paltrow seemed to me to be a bit unsure of what she was supposed to be doing). The sets need no comment; the Tibetan “recreational” valley reminded me of Rivendell from The Lord of the Rings. I was almost moved at moments. The only thing that prevents Sky Captain from being perfect is the lack of a specially adapted black-and-white version. P.S. The film points to an era in which flesh-and-blood actors will be replaced by digital facsimiles in films. (01/11/2005)