Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
"With the magic of computers, actor-chemistry can be added later..."

I was really looking forward to this film. From the trailers I loved the faux-forties look, the film-noir fascist fantasy theme and the fact that Angelina Jolie looks cute in an eyepatch. It's got robots, heroism, sinister plots and zeppelins. What more could you ask for?

The quick answer is... sets.

The entire film was shot using blue-screen (for those unlike me who aren't film-buffs that refers to filming against a plain blue screen so you can change the background easily) with no sets as such at all. It's a useful technique when you want to have actors appear in front of or amongst things that are dangerous, impossible or just hellishly expensive to create. But it has it's drawbacks, principally being that unless it's done very well, it's obvious that your actors and the background are only connected in the editing suite or effects studio. Sadly this is problem with an awful lot of SCatWoT. Even sadder is that it's not the only problem.

Jude Law is wooden and uncharismatic as the eponymous Sky Captain and Gwyneth Paltrow manages to be both wooden and highly-annoying to boot. Think Willie from Temple of Doom but without the all the ear-piercing screaming. Or indeed emoting of pretty much any kind. A two-dimensional reporter with a fixation on her camera/film, she lacks the fire and passion that the role should have demanded, instead managing to make her character look pedantic and slow-witted. Similarly if Jude Law's portrayal had been aimed at "cantankerous" (Humphrey Bogart in the Maltese Falcon for example) or "smugly charming" (Roger Moore in... absolutely anything he's been in) it would have fired a little chemistry between the characters. Perhaps a slightly stoic and staid air was intended (a lot of Forties romantic-dramas do leap to mind) but the result is a lifeless pairing that does little to endear the heroes to the audience, effectively dissipating any tension or thrills regarding the fate of the protagonists in the denouement.

Bright points amongst the mire are Giovanni Ribisi and Angelina Jolie, both considerably more entertaining than the leads and both sadly underused. The design work is also quite well done, especially in the opening scenes, although the farming out of the work to over a dozen effects companies (I lost count in the end credits) seems to have resulted in a patchy overall "look" to the film with no cohesive sense of whole to set the adventure against. The film-noir, over-exposed look of the first section quickly fades once the plot leaves New York as if the director simply forgot about it as the film wore on.

You may notice I haven't mentioned the plot at all. Partly this is a loathing of reviews that echo school-book reports; 90% plot recounting and 10% analysis. In this case though it's also that the plot is sufficiently weak that even the weight of focused attention might cause it to collapse completely. All you need to know is that the director feels no slight at purloining heavily from War of the Worlds for the first third of the film and Moonraker for the last.

Still, any film which features a global threat (once again illustrated by an attack on New York - how original) which is thwarted by the British instead of our American cousins has a certain novelty factor. It's just such a pity that the creators chose to follow the George Lucas school of blue-screens, cardboard-cutout acting and hollow-spectacle than the Peter Jackson route of blended effects techniques and characters the audience can care about. According to the IMDb, the principal photography for this film took only 26 days. Given the result though, I don't think that's anything to shout about.

Score 5/10

© Barny Russell 2005