Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

The film's real complexity comes in the form of brain games. Every time you watch "Sky Captain" you're going to see more allusions to old-time serials, comic books, and recent action-adventure films. I stopped counting when I saw references to "The Iron Giant," "Star Wars," "Spider-Man 2," "Forbidden Planet," "War of the Worlds," "Spy Kids 2," and "The Wizard of Oz"--with Oz here the bad guy, Dr. Totenkopf, who appears only as a hologram (using archival footage of the late Sir Laurence Olivier). In other words, for a film that's obviously devoted to action and visual style, there's a lot more to enjoy. Even Angelina Jolie as Franky, the eyepatch-wearing commander of a refueling fleet who helps Joe (and also has a past with him) is fun to watch, as is the mysterious woman (Ling Bai) and the legions of various robots she directs.

Video:
Because the film is deliberately gauzy and shot in muted tones to simulate age, it's not going to leap out in 1080p the way that some films do. But the level of detail on people and objects is very good, which is what you'd expect when the source master is Hi-Def.

Audio:
The most consistent delight of Blu-ray has been the sound, and the options here are English DTS 5.1 and English, French, and Spanish Dolby Digital. If your system can handle it, go for the DTS. It's got full theater sound that will fill your TV room with the rumble of reckless robots.

Extras:
Two commentaries are included, one by producer Jon Avnet and the other featuring the Conrans and their animation director and visual effects supervisor. Both commentaries are fairly low-key and low-energy, with plenty of dead spots. Avnet talks mostly about funding and how this tiny project mushroomed into one with a bigger budget than the director had anticipated. The Conrans and their crew discuss how the effects were created, which was more interesting to me. But you really have to slap yourself to pay attention, this bunch is so nearly comatose. Apparently they used up all their excitement and enthusiasm on the project itself.

The original six-minute demo is here, and you can see why it helped them recruit so many top people. Also included are two very brief (and very uneventful) deleted scenes, an okay gag reel which has value mostly because you can see the actors in front of blue-screen, and a short but decent "Anatomy of a Virtual Scene" shows how a thing like filmmaking is gradually moving from an art to a science.

The best of the extras is a two-part making-of feature, "Brave New World." Here's where you get all the behind-the-scenes stories and footage that you crave, and where you see how tiny the building was where these hundred people worked side-by-side on their computers. It's an excellent documentary that gives you a real sense of how the film evolved.

Bottom Line:
These days it's rare for a first-time director to get total control over a film, but it's even more of a rarity for a slam-bang adventure to be rated "PG." "Sky Captain" is a rollicking good matinee film for the whole family.

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