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HPopper 2.0
Jul 14, 2001

Directed by: Kerry Conran
Starring: Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Giovanni Ribisi, Angelina Jolie

Back in the late 90s, a guy named Kerry Conran set about using his Macintosh and a bluescreen to create a short film. Along with the help of his brother Kevin, he created the beginnings of what he hoped would become The World of Tomorrow, a short sci-fi actioner in the style of a 1930s sci-fi serial. After a producer caught a glimpse of the unfinished film, though, it became Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, a big-budget feature-length sci-fi actioner poised to be a summer blockbuster.

Aside from the actors and a few assorted props, Sky Captain is an entirely computer-generated movie. That means the action can shift from New York to Nepal to places that don't even exist without concern for a set budget. And it allows Conran to fill these locations with giant robots, monsters, and other pulp sci-fi staples. The movie isn't set in the actual 1930s, but rather the imaginary near-future envisioned during the 1930s. This is a pure fantasy world where the Great Depression is not a concern and the US depends not on its own military but on a mercenary squad of pilots to save the day when there's trouble.

This fantasy world simply oozes style. Sky Captain's visuals recall the work of sci-fi artists such as Frank R. Paul, from the robots to the rayguns to the impossible flying contraptions and the direction is pulled from any number of old movies: important text highlighted onscreen, radio waves are displayed using visible rings, and the washed out picture gives off a soft glow, making it look almost colorized. The result of all this is undeniably slick, giving the whole production a retro-cool look and feel. It revels in its campiness.

As for the story, it basically serves to move the audience from one action sequence to another. Captain Joseph Sullivan is the flying ace "Sky Captain", and reporter Polly Perkins serves as the romantic foil to his hero archetype. And of course, there's the bad guy, the elusive Dr. Totenkopf, whose robot army is wreaking havoc in major cities across the globe as part of his scheme to - what else? - destroy the world. So Polly and her ex-beau Sky Captain hop into his seemingly invincible Warhawk P-40 and head off to find and stop the good Doctor, exchanging barbs along the way. Pretty standard stuff, but it's got funny parts, there are a few nice twists and turns in the plotline, and Law and Paltrow play well off each other. Giovanni Ribisi also pops up as the requisite goofy gadgeteer, and despite getting top billing, Angelina Jolie lends her lips to only about 10 minutes of screentime.

There are a few problems with the movie: Some of the art direction later on looks more like it came from The Matrix than Flash Gordon. The CG is fairly hit-or-miss in places, but it eases the sting when you realize that everything you've been watching for the last hour was CG - the sky, the ground, the water - so a few visually distracting spots are forgivable. Also, presumably because it's a kid-friendly movie, there are a couple of spots that hit you over the head with their obviousness to make sure you understand what's going on. (For example, Polly has to look thoughtfully at her camera every time she contemplates snapping a picture.) I also imagine the simplistic "save the world" plot and the campy robot monsters might not appeal to everyone. It wouldn't take much for a cynic to pick this movie apart. ("How did they fly all the way across the Atlantic in that little plane?" "Why didn't the bad guy just shoot them all in the face?") Be forewarned: This movie is about as deep as your average James Bond flick.

In the end, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow delivers essentially what it promises to be: a movie from seven decades ago made using the technology of today. Conran clearly borrows heavily from countless different influences (you'd need a copy of the DVD and an encyclopedic knowledge of 20th century pop culture to catch all the little nods, homages, and references stuffed into the movie), and the resulting concoction is sharp, energetic, and just plain cool to watch. A couple of obvious ones (the number 1138 and a showdown with a Darth-Maul-esque villain) pay tribute to George Lucas, a fellow connoisseur of pulp comics and retro cinema. This is the kind of film Lucas would have made had he not spent the last 5 years obsessed with his Star Wars resurgence. It's a fantasy adventure: the type of movie that doesn't need elaborate wire-fu fights, realistic science, or pogniant human drama. It just needs to be fun.

RATING: 4.5

PROS: Neat-o visuals and directing, good action, funny bits
CONS: Some awkward CG, not for everyone

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0346156/

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Bathing Poodle
Nov 28, 2003

by Fistgrrl
I saw some test screening of this back in June. I'm pretty sure what I was was the completed film, except some CG parts were left untextured.

Anyway, the movie has a nice campy look to it. There are jetpacks, bat-mobile like planes and flying aircraft carriers. The world in the movie is really cool, and it looks great.

But that's pretty much it. The story is ridiculous, the script is stupid, and the dialogue is horrible. I understand that the movie is supposed to be corny, but this just comes off as retarded. There's one scene when Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow (I already forgot the character names) walk into an empty room, and Gwyneth points out, "There's nobody here!". Brilliant! It also has the worst, most rushed feeling ending I've ever seen. The movie's terrible script and dialogue just made the whole experience pretty lovely for me. Hell, I saw it for free and I still didn't like it.

Rating 1.5 (Would be .5 if it didn't look as neat)

Pros: It looks cool.

Cons: Everything else.

Cow of Brown
Oct 31, 2003
I saw a screening of this last week and I have to agree for the most part with HPopper 2.0. This movie essentially outdoes Lucas at his own game. Here we have a world filled with flying robots, ray guns, mad scientists, zeppelins (Hindemberg III), planes that fly underwater, giant aircraft carriers that hover and Angelina Jolie in an eyepatch. If this sounds ridiculous, its because it is. But this movie somehow manages to pull it off, if you go in with the right expectations.

The acting isn't groundbreaking, the story is pure whimsy, and the characters are completely hilarious archetypes. If this movie had been done in live action, it would have been worse than Tomb Raider. As it is, the graphics and visual style somehow elevate this to a different level, because instead of watching a movie, you truly feel as though you are watching a 30's sci-fi comic book splashed across the screen for an hour and a half.

In this context, the plot holes and corny dialogue become part of the fun, and by the end (if you've managed to shut up the part of your brain that nitpicks and tries to actually rationalize everything), you will leave the theatre with a huge smile on your face. This is the magic of cinema, people!!

RATING: 4.5

PROS: hilariously campy, great use of CG, nonstop action and adventure seems perfectly paced; never a dull moment.
CONS: Requires MASSIVE suspension of disbelief. Serious critics will probably hate it.

COMMENT: This is what the Star Wars prequels should have been like. A movie for the kid in us all.

RabidLeper
Oct 27, 2002
____|\__\o/__ AAH! SHARK
There was a duplicate thread, here are the reviews from that thread.

quote:

Tai-Pan came out of the closet to say:
I saw a sneak preview last night, and I would have to say I am fairly disappointed.
I really wanted this movie to be good. I really did, this movie has an unusual '30s comic book feel to it and I want more movies to take chances the way this did, that said, that is about all it has going for it.

The dialogue is tedious, even giving allowances for the fact that they were trying to replicate movies of the past. The acting is stilted and dull, the plot is pointless, and the movie is so predictable you could almost guess the next scene.

The editing made you think the whole experience was self-congratulatory for the director. Shots went on way to long and served no purpose except to say "Hey, I am different!".


I choose not to get into the nearly limitless pile of plot flaws, random costume mixups, and egregious lighting choices.

Mind you, I am no film buff and I enjoy a good action flick as much as the next guy, but this did not deliver.

This movie could have been so much more than it was. Save your money and see "Hero" instead.

Pro: Intersting visual style, unique special effects.
Cons: The plot, acting, and directing.

quote:

Linux Nazi came out of the closet to say:
Like a lot of internet addicts, I occasionally download movies from the good ol’ https://www. When I do I try to stick to screeners or DVD rips, but occasionally if I am feeling rather apathetic or lazy, I will grab a telesync. For those not in the know a telesync is usually when someone uses a camera to film a movie, but uses a direct audio feed (usually from a headphone jack, which I guess some theaters have, certainly none around here).

When Will “aw… hell naw!” Smiths latest abortion of a movie came out I had to see it, but would be damned if I bothered to commit the time or money to actually go to a theater. I went ahead and grabbed the telesync since it was the only thing available, and proceeded to watch.

Don’t worry, I’m getting to the point.

The telesync was fine to watch, and indecently, I Robot was not that bad. Good enough that when a couple of friends decided they wanted to see it on a night out at the movies, I didn’t protest. But watching the telesync had one huge drawback, everything bright on the screen just washed out everything around it in this annoying blur. Any sort of detail was lost completely against the contrast. An artifact of it being hand filmed in a theater to be sure, but annoying none the less.


When Sky Captain First opened, I had flashbacks of watching the I Robot telesync all over again. See, Sky Captain makes an extreme overuse of what, at least in video games, would be called Speculative Lighting or Bloom Lighting. Though I’m not certain what the cinematic term would be for it.

What is it supposed to do? Add atmosphere! What does it really do? Give you a huge loving headache! I really don’t understand the overuse of this gimmick, and it almost kills the movie. I knew this movie used it to a point, anyone who has seen screenshots of the movie online or whatever has seen it's use. And when it’s a picture about 1/3rd the size of a magazine page it looks kinda cool. When it’s on the big screen it sucks.

Sometimes you eventually grow accustom to something like this, Not in Sky Captain. This gimmick is in your face for the whole ride.

One thing you DO grow accustom to in sky captain is the story. It starts out pretty cheesy, but once the actual adventure gets going it gets pretty good. At first I thought Gwyneth Paltrow’s character, Polly, was going to make me pull out my GBA SP and play Zelda until my ride was ready to leave. But it seems like everyone grows some balls about 20 minutes into the movie, and decide to get interesting.

The main cast, including Gwyneth, Jude Law, and Giovanni Ribisi actually get some well delivered, clever and humorous quips. They don’t go over the top with the humor but lay it on just thick enough to let you know the movie isn’t taking itself that seriously. Kudos, since this is a pretty hard thing to achieve.

The effects are great. Wait, no. The effects COULD be great, if you could see them. This is where the lovely lighting effect comes into play again. Too many scenes were ruined for me because of the presence of this. They go from Blur Manhattan, to Blur Tibet, and eventually to Blur Island. The landscapes look really well done, but the immersiveness is pretty much ruined since you have to strain to see any sort of detail. It’s like putting a dancing clown in the background of every scene, no matter what reason you have for putting it there it just distracts the viewer from everything else.

Or, I don’t know, maybe the ADD is just kicking in again.

Sky Captain is about an evil German scientist who was head of a research team from 1919, Since all things evil back then were German, this only makes sense. It is set in the 1940’s, or perhaps late 30’s. It never really tells you. It is part Dick Tracy, part Nick Danger, part Batman. One of those bizarro cityscapes that COULD be Manhattan, but isn’t.

Mr. Evil German Scientist builds an army of remote control robots, which now decide to attack various places around the world for some reason. Members of his original research team, (again, more German scientists) begin to disappear, and when the last member freaks out he contacts Polly Peters, a reporter for the Generic Comicbook City Times newspaper, to spill the beans about his evil past.

This sets in motion all sorts of adventures. Polly is the estranged lover of Joe 'Sky Captain' Sullivan. When she is put in the awkward position of having inside information about what is going on she goes to him for assistance. Instead of letting him take care of business, she tags along under the pretense that she wants her story. She winds up riding shotgun for a number of dogfighting scenes and becomes 2nd seat for the rest of the movie.

I was expecting this to be a terrible movie. I was surprised to see that the sneak preview tickets were so hotly contested, and that so many people showed up. I was pleasantly surprised in the end though, which is more than I can say for other recent movies I have seen.

If you can get over the lovely lighting and stomach the first 15-20 minutes of cheesy dialog, it’s a pretty drat good flic. It’s not the next City of God or Evil Dead, but it gets the job done, and will have you entertained until the last scene. Which, indecently, has one of the better ending lines of any movie I have seen.

RATING: 3

PROS: Fairly well written, humorous and lots of action.
CONS: Fools you into thinking you need an eye exam

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0346156/

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink
The amazing lighting and well done sepia effects make this movie. The CGI is almost unnoticable. A couple times I thought I was looking at minitures, only to realise there weren't any.

It has the best robots ever in a movie. (Remember ESB's AT-ATs? What this movie had beats them so hard.) It has the best aerial combat since Return of the Jedi. It has the best undersea combat ever in a movie. It has the best several other things that I can't mention without spoiling it ever in a movie. It has the best robots ever in a movie.

This is what the Buck Rogers movie serials wanted to be.

Rating: 5.5

Pros: Robots, airplanes, derigables, mad scientist.
Cons: If you don't like 30's style art deco, then this movie might not be for you.

Sky Captain isn't the best show ever, but it's definately in the top twenty somewhere.

Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Sep 17, 2004

Cyril Sneer
Aug 8, 2004

Life would be simple in the forest except for Cyril Sneer. And his life would be simple except for The Raccoons.
A ROCK HIT ME IN THE HEAD AND MADE ME DUMB.

Somebody fucked around with this message at 02:19 on Sep 18, 2004

Suicide Pacmen
Mar 26, 2002

Rabbit season!
Excellent movie. It changed a bit from what I was expecting, but it was wonderful for what it was.

Hero is to old kung fu movies
as
Sky Captain is to 20's/30's era comic books, and sci-fi movies.


Pros: Unexpectedly funny moments, Cheesy storyline, Nothing is really played out as far as action goes.

Cons: Probably won't appeal to everyone, but I can understand because of the demographic it was shooting for.


I will definitely see this again.
5/5

edit because I can't get my era's right.

Suicide Pacmen fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Sep 18, 2004

Dr_Strangelove
Dec 16, 2003

Mein Fuhrer! THEY WON!

I'll keep this brief:

This is an outrageously fun movie. Awesome look, effects, design, imagination to burn, and loving homages to past science fiction and adventure films. I was thoroughly entertained. 4.5/5

Kikkoman
Nov 28, 2002

Posing along since 2005
Just came back from seeing it, I liked it for the most part, but the whole 30's Casablanca-like blurry weird-angled long shots really didn't appeal to me, which turned the beginning sequence into a real yawn fest. Luckily, the screen magically gets back into focus after a bit and the movie becomes pretty solid. Also the trailer makes it seem like some people are on the wrong side.

A little nitpick about something near the ending
It was embarassing to watch the bit where the Darth Maul ripoff electro-stick girl did the Morpheus "come here" thing with her fingers. It looked all wrong :(

Pros: Funny, action packed.
Cons: The start felt like it lasted forever.

3.5/5

localClient
Nov 13, 2003

The Great American Hero
This movie was really fun to watch, and in a way paying tribute to classic film. The plot was great, the characters were interesting, the acting was above average. Basically a great time at the theater.

4.5/5

Puck
Jun 24, 2003

Just got back from this. The look and feel of it was great the whole way through, but both myself and my wife found the first half of the film to be incredibly slow, despite it sporting giant robots rampaging through a city. The director seemed to be trying a lot of "cool" effects with mixing the backgrounds for special effect, but it just felt overwhelming and disjointed. I noticed a lot of the younger crowd, specifically young girls there to see Jude Law, look at each other in confusion, and even heard one say "Is it like this the whole time?" in reference to the film's dated (but striking) look.

In the second half he seemed to knuckle down, stop playing around and started telling a real story with a great world with fun characters. This last half of the movie is what gets Sky Captain deservedly compared to the Indiana Jones movies. It's witty, fun, sports some amazing visuals and is a superb homage to the old adventure serials and books.

I'd rate the last half of the movie a 4.5, but the first half knocks a point off, bringing it to an overally "Above Average" movie.

3.5/5

ColonelCarnage
Feb 10, 2003
Also keeping this short... perhaps it's because I didn't expect much from the movie, but this was quite entertaining film. It doesn't stumble over itself or take itself too seriously, is well-paced and is a very good throwback to the campy sci-fi flicks of early cinema.

At first glance I thought the odd lighting and Adobe Final Effect-like pastels would cripple the movie. Not so at all... if anything, it allows you to get into the story. The CGI is well done and appropriate, and the characters seem to have depth despite the dancing nature of the film.

For some reason I kinda feel that this is the sort of thing Lucas had in mind with Star Wars. Without a doubt this is a swashbuckling sci-fi opera attempting to be on a grander scale.

Here's for more refreshing films like Sky Captain that you can walk away from and feel entertained without wanting to drill a hole in your skull later.

Edit: Score this a solid 4/5

Beans
May 12, 2001

I WILL ANSWER ALL YOUR QUESTIONS ABOUT HOW TO PROPERLY DISCERN BANDWAGON FANS FROM TRUE FANS.
Horrible movie.

Plot? Who needs a plot?

Any semblance of realism? gently caress it, it's a loving movie!!!!!

Any kind of resolution? Hell no, after the heroes stop the world from blowing up, there is an entire 20 seconds of resolution!

Explanations? Motivations? What we need is more ACTION ACTION ACTION and more pointless ACTION ACTION ACTION!

I can't believe how ridiculously stupid this movie was. Every single problem that popped up seemed to be solved by
a) having a new loving weapon pop out of the plane
b) having Jude Law mysteriously be able to kick rear end with nothing more than a pop gun or his bare hands
c) some stupider solution

Story consisted of
a) Huge robots
b) Mutants
c) combination of both

There was no "genius" in anything that the "heroes" did in the entire movie. The villain is some super genius physicist geneticist mad scientist with unlimited resources and a superhuman ability to create a vast empire from scratch. The comedy was of the lame, one-liner type without any intelligence (of the WHOOPS HA HA SILLY ME type variety).

The feel of the movie, although purposely made to feel old-fashioned, was stereotyped to an extreme. Some of the scenes made me want to groan and leave. The only bright spot in the movie was when Angelina Jolie played the cool, rear end-kicking captain.

And to have the ending not involve Sky Captain's Plane is loving ridiculous. They built it up as some kind of superplane and in the end, it serves no purpose.

2/5 because Angelina Jolie is so excellent in her 5 minutes of screentime. Otherwise a waste of money.

Beans fucked around with this message at 09:25 on Sep 18, 2004

Loqieu
Feb 27, 2001

I loved it, beautiful, fun, and exciting. The style was fantastic, I loved the way they re-created 1930's deco New York. Everything was over the top and retro-futuristic, but never did it take itself too serious or play it up extra cheesy like Flash Gordon. True homage to 1930's scifi serials.

4.5/5

MajorDishes
Aug 11, 2004

ain't no problem like no problem
whoops

MajorDishes fucked around with this message at 05:58 on Jan 28, 2024

Mack the Knife
Feb 8, 2004

would you like to buy a monkey?
First off, I know a lot of people are NOT going to like this movie. It doesn't try to be like current action movies; it exists in the pulp days of serials and adventure fiction. It does resemble The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in this way, but I think it succeeds where League failed.
It does pump up the action to modern levels, but the characters, cliches and dialogue are all 30's era.
It's a lot of fun to watch, once you get used to the sepia-tone world. The sets, being digital, can be huge and expansive- showing off the art deco landscape. The only problem is it does look dark and a little soft, but I was easily lost in the picture once the "Story" - as thin as it is- gets going.
It reminded me of Raiders of the Lost Ark, though I think Raiders is a better movie. It's also reminscent of The Rocketeer, which I thought was underrated.
The movie is about fun- the technical aspects will be over-discussed, torn apart by some and praised by others. Personally I thought it looked as good as, if not better than the recent Star Wars prequels (probably because of the sepia tone effect). The reason to see it is because the story is DIFFERENT, it harkens back to that "sense of wonder" of the old days. So be warned, if that is not your bag, you probably shouldn't see it.
It does have a good dose of humor, it's kid-safe (but should be, unlike Alien Vs. Predator) and the actors all seem to be having fun with their parts, especially Angelina Jolie (though her part is relatively small, be warned).
4.5, loved it, could have been better - but it's up there with The Mummy and the Rocketeer, if not in Raiders territory.

batwingedloony
Feb 1, 2001

by Ozma
Pretty loving awesome. Best action movie I've seen in a while, and the CGI is crazy good. I'll give it a 5/5 just because everything else has sucked this year.

BackInTheUSSR
Jun 22, 2004

1.5 HR/9
ACE
I hate massive amounts of CGI (aotc im calling u out ok) but this movie had just the right amount of wit and style to make me overlook it. Good ending, even though it didn't climax real well. Every once in a while I like being able to see a movie where I can just sit back and watch action, and not have to think too hard. Maybe I'm an awful viewer, but too much Memento/Darko/2001:ASO/Etc. is too much mindfuck for one week.

5 out of 5 because, yeah, as he said, everything else has sucked this year.

ShadowHawk
Jun 25, 2000

CERTIFIED PRE OWNED TESLA OWNER
The first few minutes of the film are kinda interesting, as you get engrossed in the rather interesting setting and style of the film.

Then it gets just plain old boring. Towards the end it picks up a little, though.

2.5/5

NADZILLA
Dec 16, 2003
iron helps us play
Totally dumb, but at the same time it's a lot of fun. I think at times it requires the audience to suspend their disbelief beyond acceptable lengths (Jude Law punching out a robot, for instance), but it's essentially a comic book movie so I'm willing to overlook it. The CG is used surprisingly well, and although it's all over the entire film, I only really noticed laughable fakeness once (the huge explosion in the mine). The ending is awesome, also. Sky Captain is the campy adventure that Van Helsing should have been.

Four.

Cyril Sneer
Aug 8, 2004

Life would be simple in the forest except for Cyril Sneer. And his life would be simple except for The Raccoons.
Oh, I see what happened here. Nice custom title.


Lets see...the story itself was pretty dumb. There was no character development at all; I really didn't care about any of the people in the film. And where in the hell did this Sky Captain guy come from, anyway? It felt as if they decided to just start the plot half-way through an already existing story. The editing was sloppy and disjointed and it just felt as though they were merely executing storyboard frames one after another.

Also, the CGI look wasn't great either. I hate cgi, I really do. I don't think the cgi, from a technical standpoint, was very convincing. Artistically it was good; it served its purpose well, but I really don't think this type of CGI implementation is ready for the big screen yet.

Having said all that, I loved the look of the film. I loved the sepia tone, the art deco design, the music, the dialogue and speach intonations. I love Dex and his gum-chewing. I loved the comic book references. I loved that fact that it made no apologies for being a blatant throwback to early sci-fi serials. As someone who loves these old serials, I loved it for the dork factor. I loved that someone had the balls to put the money up for this movie and have it released in the mainstream. I loved the Rocketeer and this movie compliments it nicely.

The plot/technical aspects sucked, but the ballsiness and geek factor way overcomes this.

4/5

AmnioticSac
Apr 13, 2004

Not crazy, per se. . .just a little strange when he get's hungry.
I so wanted to like this movie. I really did, I thought the CG was absolutely beautiful, the scenery was inspired, and it just looked fun.

But, when I actually saw it, I couldn't even bring myself to like it. It did have some funny dialogue, and I enjoy campy movies usually (Starship Troopers, awesome) but the plot just made no sense.

Looks awesome though.

Voted: 2.0

kc0bbq
Mar 29, 2001
Forum Veteran
If you're not a fan of pulp you're not going to like the movie. If you like old serials and don't need to be spoonfed the concepts behind them the movie is gold. The robots all climbed out of '30s cartoons, as did the sets and vehicles.

They went overboard on the "I am woman, hear me roar" aspect of Polly Perkins and kept referring to World War I as World War I - World War II was barely on the horizon, why the hell would they be calling it that?

The CGI served to make it look like a mix of cartoon and old film stock used for serials. It was perfect.

It's not a movie for everyone, most people aren't going to appreciate what makes the genre special.

Voted: 4.5

tygeR
Jul 26, 2004
Great script, but I thought the story needed a bit more depth. It's a straightforward save the world story. Acting wasn't so bad. Sometimes it felt like a pastiche.
I enjoyed it. 4/5

MacRae
Jul 29, 2003

The first twenty minutes of this movie were some of the most painful minutes of my life; the retarded overuse of closeups and constant superimposing of shots was driving me up the goddamn wall. The first plane fight sequence was more or less ruined for me because you spend the entire time staring at Jude Law's (admittedly manpretty [not gay :o]) face or Paltrow looking shocked, interspersed with millisecond-long outside shots.

That said, after the first part of the movie it really picked up. I liked the whole look and feel, the fight sequences were quite neat, the setting was pretty interesting, the characters were good enough for what was required, and so on. I ended up completely forgetting about how bad the beginning of the movie had been, and really enjoyed the rest of the movie.

The rest of the movie made up for the atrocious beginning. If you like somewhat goofy pulp action, you should really see this movie. If you're looking for a deep psychological thriller frought with symbolism and social criticism, you should lighten up and then you should see this movie.

I give it a 4 out of 5.

LegoMan
Mar 17, 2002

ting ting ting

College Slice
I'm the type of guy who doesn't expect much from a movie, so my score will be predictable.

The first sequence had me grinning like a 5 year old. Watching Captain's plane fly in and out of robots with a perfect score in the background was awe inspiring. I honestly felt like I knew how people of the era felt when they watched the first incarnations of their comics on the big screen. The wonder of seeing the technology of tomorrow... today!

The movie never lets up throughout the film. The visuals were disorienting at first, but soon immersed you in the era of the film. My only nitpick was the caliber of Paltrow's acting. To me it seemed like she was just working for a quick paycheck, while you could tell Law and Jolie were actually getting into their roles and enjoying themselves (If only for 10-15 minutes in Jolie's case).

Bottom line: Definate multiple viewing and DVD purchase candidate.

5/5

hiigaran
Dec 14, 2003
I don't remember the last time I had so much fun watching a movie. It doesn't matter how bad the dialogue might be, or how bad the plot (neither of which was so bad in this movie, mind you). It did what many movies do not: It entertained me for 2 hours.

5.5

DukeRustfield
Aug 6, 2004
The movie was better and worse than I hoped.

I think the first quarter was definately slow and convoluted. I did not REMOTELY believe those two people were in a plane with each other. As stated, why have all the close-ups on them when you can look at flying?

How many people wanted to beat the poo poo out of Brad Pitt's old girlfriend when she pocketed the vials? And what the hell were they anyway? A&E? What's that mean? They stole a bit from His Girl Friday, which I encourage everyone to see how a plucky reporter can not come off like a whiney bitch.

Good stuff: The villain is dead! DEAD! How loving great is that? Very original. The jokes. There were at least 3 times I laughed out loud. Not piss my pants laughing, but I wasn't expecting it.

I'll give it a 3.75. So I'll vote a 4 and a 3.5.

Dagny
Apr 19, 2004

you ain't artsier than me
I liked this movie for a number of reasons, three of them being ninjas, robots and dinsoaurs. Another one was Gwyneth Paltrow getting punched in the face. Overall, this movie had a great deal of style, the acting was better than I expected, the story entertaining, and somehow coherent despite its far fetchedness.

4.5/5

Phallacracy
Jul 28, 2004
I just couldn't get into this one. The whole noir/sepia thing was nice at first, but about 10 minutes into the film I just felt like I was being bludgeoned over the head with it. The CGI was decent, not believeable in the least, but I think that's what they were going for. The plot might as well not even have been there. To many deus ex machina; resolutions to just about any conflict or problem just come out of NOWHERE. I like for there to be at least some subtle clues or foreshadowing to keep me interested, but the whole time I just felt like I was being bounced around randomly.

And the jokes. OH GOD THE JOKES. The only one I laughed at was when the Tibetan guy said something to the effect of "Weather cold, nipples hard." when Paltrow was acting like a bitch. The joke itself made absolutely no sense at all, I only laughed because the word "nipples" was on the screen in a theater full of parents and children, and as soon as it came up hundreds of hands flew over hundreds of pairs of eyes.


This is a rental AT BEST. The only thing that makes this in any way a decent movie is the old school film look that you will get tired of after the first half hour. Feel free to leave after that, you won't be missing anything.

1/5

suburban wine mom
May 27, 2004

This was the worst movie I have seen all year. Everything about it was terrible. It had bad cliched writing, stupid looking special effects (yes I know it was meant to look like a comic, that doesn't mean it has to look retarded), the acting felt somehow removed (maybe it's because every shot was done with a bluescreen), the story made no sense, and the characters were tired and cliched. Now it wasn't even "fun" like other bad movies such as The Day After Tommorow or Resident Evil 2, it was just entirely terrible and exceptionally boring, not even a good pop-corn muncher. Save your money and see anything else.

0.5

suburban wine mom fucked around with this message at 07:01 on Sep 21, 2004

Kro-Bar
Jul 24, 2004
USPOL May
I'll make this simple. This is the best 1930s era sci-fi movie ever made.

And the visuals were gorgeous. It felt like the screen was having sex with my eyes.


4.5/5

I said come in!
Jun 22, 2004

I really enjoyed this film. It is a short and fun movie to watch. Cheesy dialog to the max! But that is what made it so good, and even funny at times. It just screams a sci-fi film from the black and white days of the 1950's. If you liked this film, you should check out the black and white movie War of the Worlds. Completely different movie, but same theme.

4/5

SacrificialGoat
Oct 8, 2003

Catjaw is a hero of the people
Oh man, my love for this has no bounds. I will own this on DVD.

elister
Dec 29, 2001

by Mayor Wilkins
This movie was horrible, I basically kept watching it to see if it would get any better and it didnt. Good production, good actors, good sets, really lovely script.

The Contrabulous Fabtraption of Professor Horatio Hufnagel, eat your heart out! Troy McClure would have sold his best goldfish into sexual slavery to get a part in Sky Captain.

.5

Edit: If I could vote lower I would, as this is the worst movie ive seen all year. If you dont like the way I vote, well tough poo poo. I could give a flying rat gently caress if ANYONE finds inconsistencies in the way I vote. A good producer + lovely script DOES NOT make a movie halfway decent, it makes it, in my eyes, a steaming pile of poo poo! If I wanted to watch pretty FX, id rent 'Beyonds the Minds Taint Part loving 10'.

elister fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Sep 24, 2004

hollismasonold
Sep 12, 2003
<img src="https://fi.somethingawful.com/images/title-banned.gif"><br><b>by Lowtax</b>
This is the first movie I have ever walked out of and asked for a refund. I left a little bit after Polly and Sky Captain meet. For the first few minutes I was digging it. The intro with the Zeppelin was cool. I understand this is not our world, I understand what the filmmaker was trying to do, but it looks like poo poo to see people lit up like that. The film is like one big long glamour shot that was taken at Wal Mart Photo Center. That big bright glow. I just really couldn't take it my eyes started to hurt and I could feel a headache coming on.
The whole time I am sitting in the seat thinking to myself I hope my girlfriend is liking this cause its pure agony to watch on screen.

The special effects looked hokey. It was poorly directed. The actors didn't really act ,but instead were doing a radio play. Inflection in voice to emphasize something when the viewer can't see is one thing. Doing it constantly in conversation is another. I'm sure the rest of the film is great, whatever. I'll get this when it comes out at blockbuster just like I do every thing else, but if I didn't have Blockbuster unlimited rentals I wouldn't pay for it. Maybe if it came on NBC or ABC I would watch it.

Yes, it was amazing that it was done with computers and the robots looked cool and all fifties. Where they failed was that when you put that up a against a real human being it looks like poo poo.

I only watched 15 to 20 minutes turned to my girlfriend who started laughing when Polly and the Sky Captain started talking to each other and we both got up and left. I went and saw Cellular the next day with her and enjoyed that more. I love pulp fiction, maybe I'll attempt to go and see it ,but I'm showing up at least 30 minutes late. Flash Gordon did Pulp better. So did Buck Rogers come to think of it.

PIECE OF poo poo FILM, but really awesome idea. I will buy a Sky Captain Robot. They did a great job *cough* Robots look like the one in The Day the Earth Stood Still *cough*

1.0

hollismasonold fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Sep 23, 2004

DukeRustfield
Aug 6, 2004

quote:

elister came out of the closet to say:
This movie was horrible, I basically kept watching it to see if it would get any better and it didnt. Good production, good actors, good sets, really lovely script.

.5
Not a review here, but you said good this, good that and gave it a .5 which is as low as it possibly goes. I'd think if the word "good" appears anywhere in comments it should at least be a 1. Just like if you have any CONS at all, it shouldn't be a 5.5. Otherwise we're going to have kind of inconsistent ratings.

Un-l337-Pork
Sep 9, 2001

Oooh yeah...


Cross Indiana Jones with Tailspin and add a dash of Attack of the Clones and what do you get? Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow! Honestly, that's all you need to know to draw your own conclusions about the quality of this film, or more importantly, whether or not you'll enjoy it.

The plot is something I would expect to see on a Saturday morning episode of "Tailspin". Is that bad? I don't think so, but then again, "Tailspin" is never going to win an academy award for its writing. Neither is "Sky Captain". When robots invade a circa 1937 New York City, Joe Sullivan (aka Sky Captain) comes to the rescue in his highly-modified plane, a prop-fighter equivalent of the Batmobile. Shortly after, he meets up with Polly Perkins, the classic "overly zealous" reporter, and the two fly off to stop the robots and rescue a friend.

The plot becomes increasingly bizarre with every turn. Just when you think the ordeal cannot possibly get any weirder, it does, and I desperately expected to see a commerical for Frosted Flakes appear as the picture faded to black.

What we have here is a live-action Saturday Morning cartoon with a retro theme and an aviating Indiana Jones as the lead. As fas as I could tell, almost all of the sets, special effects, and, well, drat just about everything is CGI. I didn't mind. The special effects are as good as ubiquitous CGI can be - at this point.

Jude Law and Gywenth Paltrow are both fantastic in their roles, especially Law who's Sky Captain is a great cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Baloo. In fact, I found no flaws with any members of the cast, but nobody here is winning any Oscars.

I liked it. It's DEFINITLY not the regular hollywood tripe, but the only "classic" status it stands to attain is "cult". It's just not as good enough to give it that push into "something special" territory, and I doubt that it will make enough money to warrant a sequel. Even with the ridiculous plot, I still wouldn't mind seeing another installment of SKY CAPTAIN AND THE [INSERT SOMETHING CATCHY HERE] a few years down the road.

4.5/5

stremph
May 22, 2001
Forum Veteran
This is a really tough movie to score.

Let me start by saying that I hate Gwyneth Paltrow. I hope she dies so that she'll never again ruin movies that I would otherwise enjoy. I hate her because her entire screen presence says "I'm an ACTRESS! Look at me acting!" She's like a spoiled brat who gets to be in movies because her parents are rich and famous, and I'm sick and loving tired of seeing her robotic, phony facial expressions. It's constantly obvious that she's acting, you're never able to see the character, you just see her dumb face. I wish that at least I thought she was hot so that I could appreciate that, but she looks just like my sister, so that's impossible. Thankfully my sister isn't a moron like Gwyneth.

She didn't ruin the movie on her own, however. She had a lot of help from her character's (Polly's) dialog. Jesus Christ. Like the loving scene in the movie theator, when she couldn't figure out what was going on so she just kept firing stupid questions at that poor scientist. She acts like that for the whole movie. I laughed (embarrassingly) loudly when she got punched in the face, and swore in disgust (inappropriately) when she woke up in bed instead of dying from that explosion.

It's such a tough movie to score because Gwyneth is in every scene, but everything else about it is top-notch. Everything. It's loving irritating that people either don't "get" the style of the movie, or that they did like it and they feel that they have to apologize for it and preemptively defend it. Like "Oh, it's just campy 30's futuristic sci-fi. Neat Idea, but not for everyone." Well gently caress that, it's a loving tremendously original idea and it was executed perfectly.

I don't need to list all the great things, just see the movie and take it all in. Especially Angela Jolie's character and the scenes involving her.

I had one last problem with the movie, and that was the ending. I think it would have been so much cooler if Sky Captain took off in the rocket to have all new adventures on distant planets; the sequels would be equally original and entertaining. The ending they went with sets up the sequels to be the same old poo poo as the first movie, but it'll probably be cool anyway.

I'm gonna have to go with a '4.0: Very Good' overall score. Just please realize how hard it is to do that for me, I really want to give it a 0.5 because of the amount of Gwyneth bullshit I had to put up with.

4.0/5.5

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LodeRunner
Dec 27, 2003

Go on, take the money and run.
The main problem this movie suffered from in my eyes was the absolute forgettableness (is that even a word) of the main actors. Jude Law and... uh, whoever the hell that was that played Polly were totally dull and boring in their performances. It's a shame, because all the supporting actors were good (the fat hairy dude, Angelina Jolie, the guy who played Dex and was also in Gone in 60 Seconds). It struck me that the role of Sky Captain needed Brendan Fraiser playing it instead of our All American hero with a non American accent, Jude Law.

So there you have it. I can overlook the lack of a plot if the actors do a good job, which I felt the leads did not.
3/5

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