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jeriendhalThis is the fourth bloody time I've attempted to write a review of this thing, so for the sake of my sanity I'll keep it short this time in an attempt to actaully finish the damned thing.
Sky Captain is a good movie. Not a great movie, but a good one. In sense it's the first real "serial" movie made since Raiders of the Lost Ark, which succeeded in reminding us how fun the old serials used to be (non-stop action, wierd science, exotic locals) while culling out the parts that weren't (crappy acting & effects, offensive stereotyping).
You could tell the director, Kerry Conran, is an obsessive fan of the old movies. Just the insane amount of detail in his rendering of 30's NYC, and gags like a flight of underwater aircraft (don't ask) passing by the sunken remains of King Kong's steam ship the Venture, make this a work of love. The trick of the filming, putting essentially the whole thing on bluescreen with computer effect backgrounds, was the only way to film it. It's a beautiful movie, filled with eye candy and action. But it's by no means perfect.
The main problem is the chemistry, or lack thereof, between the leads, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow. Anyone with moniker "Sky Captain" is a man that one would assume would be a jut-jawed hero in the Bruce Campbell/Raymond Massey sense. What we get is a somewhat soft-spoken Englishman who just doesn't come across as particularly believable, especially when he's called to do stuff like punch out a robot by smacking it in the jaw. Paltrow comes across as a bit better, but her character is a one-note Plucky Female Reporter, who spends a lot of time in supposedly witty banter with Jude that comes across as rather flat. The worst moment is perhaps the very final word of the movie, which should have been laugh-out-loud funny, but coming from Jude's mouth just seems terribly flat.
A secondary problem likely has something to do with Conran's status as a first time director. For all the wonders in this film and the action, there's a definite lack of urgency about the whole thing. Perhaps it's an artifact of being confined to a blue screen stage, but even in situations where the characters aught to be hurrying, it's seems more like they're sauntering out of the way of danger.
In conclusion, Sky Captain is a miss, not a hit. But it's awfully near miss,, which is pretty good for something that was such a bold experiment, and if there should ever be a sequel, I want to see it in the theaters.
Sky Captain is a good movie. Not a great movie, but a good one. In sense it's the first real "serial" movie made since Raiders of the Lost Ark, which succeeded in reminding us how fun the old serials used to be (non-stop action, wierd science, exotic locals) while culling out the parts that weren't (crappy acting & effects, offensive stereotyping).
You could tell the director, Kerry Conran, is an obsessive fan of the old movies. Just the insane amount of detail in his rendering of 30's NYC, and gags like a flight of underwater aircraft (don't ask) passing by the sunken remains of King Kong's steam ship the Venture, make this a work of love. The trick of the filming, putting essentially the whole thing on bluescreen with computer effect backgrounds, was the only way to film it. It's a beautiful movie, filled with eye candy and action. But it's by no means perfect.
The main problem is the chemistry, or lack thereof, between the leads, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow. Anyone with moniker "Sky Captain" is a man that one would assume would be a jut-jawed hero in the Bruce Campbell/Raymond Massey sense. What we get is a somewhat soft-spoken Englishman who just doesn't come across as particularly believable, especially when he's called to do stuff like punch out a robot by smacking it in the jaw. Paltrow comes across as a bit better, but her character is a one-note Plucky Female Reporter, who spends a lot of time in supposedly witty banter with Jude that comes across as rather flat. The worst moment is perhaps the very final word of the movie, which should have been laugh-out-loud funny, but coming from Jude's mouth just seems terribly flat.
A secondary problem likely has something to do with Conran's status as a first time director. For all the wonders in this film and the action, there's a definite lack of urgency about the whole thing. Perhaps it's an artifact of being confined to a blue screen stage, but even in situations where the characters aught to be hurrying, it's seems more like they're sauntering out of the way of danger.
In conclusion, Sky Captain is a miss, not a hit. But it's awfully near miss,, which is pretty good for something that was such a bold experiment, and if there should ever be a sequel, I want to see it in the theaters.
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Date: 2005-02-08 01:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-08 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-09 07:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-09 08:07 am (UTC)What started to bug me was nailng down the timeframe of the thing. I know it's a mistake given it's in an alternate universe, but as near as I can figure it's actually set in 1948 or thereabouts. Everyone is flying airships, but a mercenary air force is also flying B-24 Liberators, and there are several references to "World War 1", not to mention that Sky Captain was once a member of the American Volunteer Group in China.
Call it post WW 1 1/2, where Germany and Japan indulged their ambitions, but we never saw a rise of Hitler and blatent genocide towards the Jews, or an attack on Pearl Harbor. America managed to hold a little to it's isolationist tendencies (hence letting a group of mercenaries handles global crises), and Britain still has enough of it's Empire to afford S.H.I.E.L.D type helicarriers.
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Date: 2005-02-09 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-09 03:08 pm (UTC)Stuck in the can for ten years because the studio thought it was a bomb? (which it was, at the time of it's original release.) Either that or WW 1 1/2 started 10 years earlier than WW II. Which means Hitler was still serving time for the Beer Hall Putsch IIRC during the conflict.