Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow Details

You have to admire not just the vision, but also the perversity of writer/director Kerry Conran's use of the latest digital technology to create a hymn to Buck Rogers and all those other rugged-individualist heroes of comic books and cliffhanger serials. In some curiously imprecise era, people work in skyscrapers, ride in airships, and only one man can save the world when leading scientists start disappearing and cities are attacked by enormous robots — Joe Sullivan (Jude Law), aka Sky Captain, accompanied by erstwhile girlfriend and ace reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow). What is most impressive is the way in which Conran has created the future as it was perceived back in the 1930s. However, despite being breathtakingly clever — the cast acted against a “blue-screen” and all the backgrounds were added digitally — this lacks the warmth and charm of Raiders of the Lost Ark, which attempted a similar exercise in nostalgia without the exclusive use of technology to achieve it.

Based on 1930s pulp science fiction, a throwback to the future world of yesterday that, for all its visual cleverness has an inert narrative and cardboard characterization.