It may sound condescending to call this picture an oddity, but I call it an oddity as a wholly positive remark.
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Set in a fantastical and whimsical New York City in 1939, "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" is a high tech homage to "Flash Gordon" serials and the black and white filmmaking of yesteryear. Shot entirely in front of blue screens and using various CGI technologies, "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" is a unique film with style and art direction unlike any other film produced. While providing a modern incarnation of the stylish films of the Forties and Fifties, "Sky Captain" is a gift to movie fans and is laden with juicy nuggets of cinematic nostalgia. "King Kong" can be seen climbing the Empire State Building. The "Titanic" and other notable ships that have sailed on the Silver Screen find a watery grave near the films end. "THX-1138," "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back" and numerous other films are teased and referenced in this high flying adventure.
Director and writer Kerry Conran had an interesting idea when he conceived "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow." Borrowing and paying tribute to so many films of decades ago, the director intertwines historical details of the era and involves them into the story. Some of the film´s history was changed to help facilitate the ´alternate reality´ New York of 1939. The Hindenburg docks at the Empire State Building, something that was originally intended to be, but never quite happened. Newspapers plaster true stories onto their front pages from vintage elements. Sets are painfully recreated to created a look and feel of a New York City that is not preparing for World War II, but getting ready for a large scale invasion by gigantic robots and mysterious flying machines. When mixed with the large number of film references, every line of dialogue and every minute detail on screen may hide a bit of cinematic or historical fact or fiction awaiting to be discovered.
Sadly, the director´s gift to us film buffs and movie lovers was largely ignored. The film grossed about as much in box office ticket sales as it cost to produce (about forty million dollars). It has not been a big success in home video sales either. "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" is so visually interesting and curious in its storytelling that the film is a nearly forgotten gem that deserves more attention than it has gotten. The film was shot in only a few weeks and nearly the entire film was produced on computers. I remember hearing about the film and was quite interested in seeing the film because of its throwback look and different take on filmmaking. However, I was alone in a desire to pay my money for a ticket. I couldn´t find a single person that thought the film looked interesting. The couple people I do know that have enjoyed this quirky and unique picture grew up on the comic books, television shows and films that so heavily inspired this project.
The film´s story takes place in a New York City that has seen many top scientists mysteriously disappear. One day, while "The Wizard of Oz" is the biggest show in town, mechanical giants invade the city and bring mass destruction and throw the world into a panic. As was the case with many of the old serials, there is always one hero for the populace to fall back on and in this film, that hero is Joe Sullivan (Jude Law), the "Sky Captain." Flying a heavily modified P-40 Warhawk that has the ability to fly underwater and other assorted science fiction gadgets, "Sky Captain" leads his own military force that has the highest technological weapons, devised by Sky Captain´s right-hand man, Dex (Giovanni Ribisi). Sky Captain and Dex have known about the robots for nearly three years, but their invasions have been isolated incidents that have been kept secret. After the large-scale invasion of the Big Apple, the secret is out.
Sky Captain´s ex-girlfriend and hard-working reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) has been tracking leads and researching the disappearing scientists for her big story. When Sky Captain comes to save the day, Polly and Joe find themselves part of each others lives again. Joe feels Polly sabotaged his plane and caused him a great deal of trouble in the aftermath and Joe had cheated on her with another woman. Though both are very reluctant, Polly and Sky Captain agree to help each other in uncovering the mysteries of the disappearing scientists and the humongous robotic army.
What is really amazing is that this film was shot in its entirety in only twenty-nine days. Almost all of the film´s shots had the actors and actresses work in an empty soundstage that was filled only with blue screens. Aside from the occasional handgun, steering wheel or camera, every other element was digitally created. There are instances when it would have been easier to build a physical set, but the director knew that he had to do everything digitally to maintain the fantastic look of the picture. "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" mimics much of the same lighting techniques and camera techniques of the old black and white films. Watching this picture has a feeling of watching a colorized classic. That same ´hazy´ outline of the actors and somewhat weak coloring is faithfully recreated in this picture. It is hard to fully convey how interesting this picture looks and the best way I can describe it is to say it looks like a colorized black and white picture.
There is so much borrowing and influence in "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" that one would have a hard time arguing that this film is original. There are so many little themes and ideas that are taken from so many different adventure and science fiction films that one could imagine the entire screenplay being pieced together like a ransom note. However, the nature in how this film was made and its taking no effort to hide the fact it borrows everything does create an original experience. It may sound condescending to call this picture an oddity, but I call it an oddity as a wholly positive remark. There is a lot of fun to be had watching this picture. I picked up on well over a dozen references to other pictures. There were at least two moments when I instantly thought "King King," and then my research uncovered to obscure "King Kong" references that made it a lot of fun to go back and watch the movie again to find them. I´ll give you one of them. At fourteen minutes and eighteen seconds, you can see the Empire State Building in the background. Guess who is climbing the building, up near the top? Yup, the big ape himself.
Video:
I cannot think of another picture that is as difficult as this one to grade on visual quality. "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" is a beautiful film. It really is. However, the diluted and desaturated colors that are purposely out of contrast and the constantly hazy picture will never ever have somebody proclaim "this looks breathtaking." It is meant to pay tribute to the visual stylings of films that are now fifty and sixty years old. There are a few minor times when the level of detail is high, but these are fleeting moments. The film is so far different than anything else ever produced that it is incredibly difficult to do it justice with words. I´m sure there are a large number of folk out there that think I´m insane by calling "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" a beautiful looking film. It is certainly not something you would expect to stand out in high definition, yet it does have a very high definition appeal to it and the increased color capabilities and amount of detail of the HD-DVD format helps this film achieve its intended visual goal far greater than the standard definition release did.
One scene that stands out in my mind as looking incredible is where Sky Captain is returning to his private island where his landing strip and hangers are located. The water is this unusual greenish-blue that would only be used to color water in those old colorized films. It is very unnatural looking. The island is full of color and detailed, but has that classic look to it and looks nothing like a modern day popcorn picture. I loved the look of this scene and it is one of the great examples of how interesting this digitally created movie looks. The floating airships were stunning as well. The only moment when I thought the transfer fell apart and did not look that great was the first time when Sky Captain plunged beneath the waves. The color gradients were too greatly separated and the background looked more like a poorly done video game than it did a beautifully created film.
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