Milkduds

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (7/10)

February 9th, 2005

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a 1930’s style sci-fi adventure about a mad scientist using robots to try to take over the world. It stars Jude Law as Sky Captain, the hero, and Gwyneth Paltrow as Polly Perkins, the daring reporter covering the story and playing Law’s love interest. Giovanni Ribisi and Angelina Jolie have supporting roles as well.

This movie is incredible to watch, or rather, to see. Not because it is an engrossing story or has tremendous acting (which it doesn’t), but because the moving pictures are stunning to watch. I can best compare it to watching a movie through a blurred sepia digital camera filter, which gives it the old 1930’s look. Add to that the old-style comic book sci-fi imagery, like giant metal robots, and you have this movie. The story is good, but you have to appreciate the dialogue for the attempt at making everyone sound like the movies from the 30’s, or you’ll just think it’s cheesey. Despite that, Paltrow still manages to do a sub-par acting job, with hardly any emotion at all.

I think what most amazed me after seeing the movie and researching it, was that it was Kerry Conran’s first writing and directing job on a major motion picture. Sky Captain is the first thing listed on his IMDB page, and not much else! After much research, I can’t figure out how this movie got major Hollywood actors and into large scale distribution by Paramount. I read that it started as a short film and Paltrow signed up immediately after watching 6 minutes of it. I’m sure there is a story behind the making of this somewhere.

Entry Filed under: Movies