This movie is different. It seems like the producer, scriptwriter, and director grabbed a 1930's science fiction comic book and turned it into a movie. I will say that they did a good job, and parts of it are entertaining, but the movie just gives me a weird feeling. I never took a film class so I don't know what Film Noir is, I have been told that Blade Runner is Film Noir, but I am going to guess that this is also of that genre. I think people will either hate this movie or love it, with most people going to hate it.

Sky Captain stars Jude Law (Cold Mountain, Road To Perdition) as the Sky Captain who is trying to save the world from a bunch of mechanical robots and their leader Dr. Totenkopf (Lawerence Olivier - classical Shakespeare actor.) Helping him is his former love interest and reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow - View from the Top, Shallow Hal,) Dex Dearborn (Giovanni Ribisi - Saving Private Ryan, Cold Mountain,) and Capt. Franky Cook (Angelina Jole - Taking Lives, Tomb Raider 1,2.)

Now I know what you're saying, how can Lawerence Olivier be in this movie when he has been dead since 1989? Well just like in the early science fiction movies (ala Ed Wood) there is stock footage of him saying these lines from another movie. What movie or movies I don't know? But according to the end credits he is the bad guy.

It's certain that this movie is homage to those 1930's comic books or radio shows like Flash Gordon, it just seems this is all out of place. Jude Law's character is interesting but is played to dull to be a hero. If they wanted to make this a true homage, Sky Captain should have been played over the top and he wasn't. The over the top character was Polly Perkins. She is a reporter that by today's standards is just as ruthless as Geraldo Rivera or Dan Rather. Paltrow played the part right, I just think the dialogue was weak. Angalina Jole's character could have been played by any woman and would have been ok. She was there obviously for the name recognition for the movie.

The writer and director was Kerry Conran. This movie is both his writing and directing debut. As debuts go, I have seen worse, but you can tell that he is new at it. I would say that 75% of this movie was shot against a blue screen with computer generated effects and I don't know if that is something that a first time director should start in.

I just can't tell you whether or not to see this movie. To me it is so odd that I don't like it, but I do, but then again I don't. My rating is what it is because it's as close to how I can judge my feelings on it. Sorry for not being more helpful, but this movie has me stumped!

Brian - the Naked Gun