Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow

Year: 2004

Grade: B

Country: USA

Director: Conran

Review

the first thing everyone will notice about this film is its cinematography, or, maybe, its lack thereof. after all, is it really cinematography if you’re just filming characters on a green screen and applying lighting and sets in post-production? so we’ll just say it’s the “look” that people will notice, and for good reason. it’s a lot different from anything you’ve seen or are likely to see any time soon. another thing your likely to notice fairly quickly is how fun the film is. i would have liked to dislike the film because the technique (cgi constructed everything, except the actors) seems a contradiction to the subject (1939 new york), but the fact is that the look fits and the writing is good enough to wrangle in even the more cynical viewers (such as myself). sure it’s a derivative film – it borrows or references films/serials/comics like crazy, but it does it the same way indiana jones or pulp fiction did – with love and reverence instead of cultural piracy for profit. i don’t think that law and paltrow had great chemistry, but the writing did a good job of creating a chemistry between them. there was a good sense of humor between them, a checkered past that was touched upon, but not played out too much, and they never had to kiss each other which is the big test for on screen chemistry. the film’s pacing is also well done. it’s not overly methodical, but action sequences are spaced pretty evenly and are well-executed. it gives you only enough time to think about the mystery driving the film in short intervals before another action sequence, a change in plot direction, or a character development occurs. as a result the film moves along well and stays interesting throughout.

Watched in theater