Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
mizbean
I got one those cute icons thingys. This is in honor of my cat Claude who I'm sure is sprawled out on my pillow as I write.
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Went and saw Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow last night. Visually the movie is absolutely stunning, and the opportunity of seeing Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law in an action movie is interesting in of itself, but I don't know. I was a little dissappointed.
For the first half hour I was taken aback by how amazing everything looked; it was positively gorgeous. It definitely had a bang-up beginning, what with giant robots invading Midtown Manhattan and the plucky Gwyneth Paltrow, appropriately named Polly, constantly coming within a hair’s breathe of getting stomped by those big machines. Enter Jude Law who, of course, dashingly saves the day, but unfortunately there is no Harrison Ford (more on that later).
Herein lies my problem with the movie, I spent the better part of the first half of the movie absolutely enjoying myself, happily going along for the ride, but once it got toward the conclusion, I started to lose interest. The final confrontation between the good guys and the bad evil scientist was just lacking. SPOILER ALERT. Really, I think a lot of that had to do with the evil baddie being dead for 20 years and the whole ebil plan being set into motion by a computer. As a James Bond fan, I kind of missed having a big confrontation where the cackling evil baddie reveals his master plan and thus unwittingly allowing ample time for the heroes to destroy him and escape unharmed.
Definitely I thought it had the potential to be a really great movie and that it wasn’t saddened me with all the talent involved. If this film doesn’t get several technical Oscars I’ll be really surprised.
I’m not a big Gwyneth fan but I thought she was well cast in this. She did a good job sending up her role as a depression-era reporter who gets in all manner of trouble without mussing her hair or her bright red lipstick. Jude Law definitely fills out his aviator jacket well and Angelina is gorgeous all the way around, but her role is sadly no more than a cameo.
I went to the movie with some of my co-workers and we had a bit of a disagreement this morning when discussing it. One of them said it was better than Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, which I think it an accurate comparison being that they are all popcorn comic book genre films. I have to totally disagree, though. I admit that Star Wars (1977) has dated itself a little for me, but I definitely don’t think it’s better than Raiders. I think Sky Captain takes a lot from Raiders, their time period is the same, the similar flirty banter between former lovers, the evil Germans, but something is missing. Maybe it’s because Sky Captain tries to send up the genre whereas Raiders plays it straight. Maybe it’s because Harrison Ford was so good at playing the reluctant hero that you couldn’t help wanting to go along for the ride. I think mostly it’ because Sky Captain lacks Raiders tightly written plot and unrelenting action. Hmmm, suddenly I have an urge to rent a bunch of Harrison Ford movies.
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On the baseball front, when are the Giants ever going to lose a game? Grrr. *nervously eyes the NL Wild Card standings*