Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

So this is it, huh? The grand vision that was supposed to wow us? The bold cinematic wonder, the glimpse into the future of motion pictures?

Please. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is nothing new -- George Lucas has already done the CGI orgy bit twice now, with a third coming out next year. In fact, it's rather old-fashioned, and not just in that nostalgic 1930s way writer/director Kerry Conran wanted. As with so many -- too many -- films these days, it looks good, but has nothing upstairs. The digital effects and unique visual style only take it so far before the vapid script runs out of gas and there's nothing but pretty pictures to hold your interest.

The beginning is at least promising. Conran's late 1930s New York is gorgeous, with zeppelins flying through the air (though opening your film with a giant ship called the Hindenberg is just asking for it) and everything all gray and washed out, like an old newspaper photograph. But Polly Perkins (Gwenyth Paltrow), ace reporter for the New York Chronicle, knows something bad is happening: several scientists have disappeared for unknown reasons. She meets a source during a screening of The Wizard of Oz (at 6:00, which would presumably be p.m., but an entire day seems to pass after that, so maybe it's an extremely early matinee) who tells her about the mysterious Dr. Totenkopf, who's kidnapping the scientists -- a group known as "Unit 11" -- to help him build his "doomsday machine."

If the wheels come off later on, it's this scene that first works them loose: Polly is a moron, a completely idiotic character that grates the nerves. This scientist tells her everything, the entire plan (minus a few details saved for the big third-act reveal), but she retains none of it at all. In fact, she chases him down as he tries to leave the theater and demands that he repeat everything. She grows no smarter as the film progresses, and by the end even the script is making fun of her. And poor Gwenyth Paltrow is totally lost inside this ditz, unsure of what to do with a character whose IQ is roughly equal to her hat size.

And then come the CGI money shots -- giant killer robots storm New York from the sky and start tearing it apart and crushing everyone in their way. The police try to stop them, but to no avail, so they call on "Sky Captain" Joe Sullivan (Jude Law) to save the day. There's no explanation of where Sky Captain comes from, why he has his own personal island near New York, or who all those people working for him (like Giovanni Ribisi) are, or why the city is able to call on him like Batman (with a special signal and everything) when danger arises, or what possible dangers other than giant killer robots could have arisen before this -- he's just a superhero, dammit, and we must accept this. It's really not even clear what makes him so special as a pilot anyway, but Sky Captain swoops in with his ridiculously advanced prop plane and chases the robots away. But they come back, of course, and Joe and Polly (former lovers, naturally) must get over their old anger with one another to stop Totenkopf from completing his evil plan...whatever that might be -- Polly isn't sure.

Jude Law is no better off than Paltrow -- Sky Captain is a cardboard cutout of a character, a collection of insults rather than a true person. He's actually kind of a jerk, which makes me wonder why Polly is so taken with him. Both Law and Paltrow look uncomfortable acting on an imaginary set; they never come close to deepen their characters beyond their most surface traits and stale dialogue. Angelina Jolie -- who shows up halfway through as Frankie, a British pilot who acts as the rift in Polly and Joe's relationship -- does a little better than those two; maybe because she's used to acting with computer cartoons from the Tomb Raider films, maybe because she has so much less screen time (she's disappeared and forgotten after about ten minutes or so). She spends most of her time barking out orders in that clipped Lady Croft accent and smirking around her eyepatch...and how in the hell can a fighter pilot still operate so effectively with one eye, anyway?

Conran built this project from the ground up, using CGI for everything -- every scene, whether an amphibious airplane assault (yeah, amphibious airplanes) or a simple conversation in a movie theater, is filmed before a blue screen, with even the extras added in digitally. It was all based on a short film he built on his Macintosh -- that got him the financing to make this big-budget disaster. And it sometimes feels like Conran knew this might be his only shot at a feature: the second half of the film is crammed with bad ideas that sound like "one day I'm going to do a film about..."-type stuff. Like the underwater planes, or the flying aircraft carriers, or the island filled with dinosaurs, or the Noah's Ark rocket into space, or Sir Laurence Olivier (!) back from the dead in glorious CGI, or ninja robots with laser sticks, and oh please make it stop. And again, it all looks fantastic -- Conran may not be much of a screenwriter, but his visual style may be worth another look.

Is Sky Captain the future? A well-designed, poorly written film featuring actors who look like they'd rather be anywhere else in the world? Sorry, Mr. Conran, but we've had these movies for a long time now. Just ask Michael Bay.

Rating: *