Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

I missed Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow when it was first out in theaters. I was supposed to go see it at the Mann Chinese with my friend Cory, but what we didn't know...what we didn't dare suspect...was that The Kilmer himself, his Valness, was starring in a new musical (!) production of The Ten Commandments at the adjoining Kodak Theater.

So, we were both held up in some traffic on Highland that can only be described as "potentially suicide-inducing," and didn't get to the theater until about 45 minutes after Sky Captain was supposed to start. Which, of course, means the trailers were half-over. And I have to be in my seat for all the trailers.

So that plan was ruined.

I figured, Hollywood still owed me something in exchange for my valuable time. So, I took the liberty of downloading the film for free this weekend.

And I'd encourage you to do the same, except that would be illegal and wrong. So, you should definitely go out and pay to see the movie, either in a discount theater or when it comes out on DVD, even though I didn't. Becuase it's really quite exceptional.

I don't know if I read a terrible amount of good Sky Captain reviews, and I can't imagine why. I see Yahoo! users gave it an overall grade of B-. B-? Shrek 2 got a B+...come on, people...

Sure, the whole thing is a blatant Indiana Jones rip, and there's far too much exposition in the film's middle section that bogs the entire enterprise down...But what kind of a churlish curmudgeon do you have to be to reject a movie that looks this amazing?

You probably read upon the film's release about the technology that went into its production. How director Kerry Conran and his team designed the better part of the imagery in computers, only to later plug in actors like Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law, as well as props, into the foreground to create the finished image. But I'm not sure that pictures, or even the brief television ads that appeared a few months ago, do the movie justice.

It has a truly innovative style, half-Star Wars prequel and half-Hudsucker Proxy. There are off-handed references in the film to the comics of the 1930's, and those forms were clearly influential to the final look. This film shares with Blade II and The Incredibles a real cinematographic sense of comic books coming to life. Odd that this movie is essentially a cartoon with live actors, and yet it feels more fully realized than most completely live-action comic book movies, like X2 or the original Spider-Man.

So, Conran is clearly an innovator with a master of film style. Now, he just needs to de-Spielberg-ify by approximately 70%.

Yes, regrettably, Kerry has the old Stephen Sommers curse...Filmmakers of a certain generation (mine) that just can't divorce themselves from their slavish devotion to The Master, the man himself, Steve-arino. You may know Stephen Sommers as the director The Mummy, The Mummy Returns and the cringe-inducing Van Helsing. Every shot in every one of his films can be traced back to some Spielbergian origin. And Sky Captain cuts it so close to the classic Indiana Jones series, Stevie may want to consider legal action. Submitted for your approval:

• The film takes place between WWI and WWII.
• The film has the feel of old movie serials, including montage sequences of the heroes traveling around a map of the world
• The villain is an evil German scientist with a fetish for eagle insignias and black leather gloves.
• The snarky, seen-it-all hero travels with an attractive, plucky, fiercely independant firecracker of a single gal, with whom he was once romantically involved.
• An overweight, cantankerous foreigner guides the hero on his way.
• Do I really need to keep going with this? You get the idea.

So, yeah, Kerry could have put just a teensy more thought into originality.

But, I mean, the guy was busy designing CG robots, so it's a forgivable lapse. If I were a Yahoo! member (and, come to think of it, I am!), I'd give Sky Captain at least an A-, but I'd probably bump it up to a straight A considering the effort involved. This is a truly remarkable feast for the senses, even if it's not the strongest-told story of the year. Recommended.