Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow vs The Empire Strikes Back

I do a lot of complaining about what I feel is an over-dependence on computer generated images in movies. Ever see Lost in Space? They find this space monkey thing, and it becomes their pal, and it's so obviously animated that the actors look like they're filming a Cocoa Puffs commercial. They can barely even figure out where to look, and when someone has to hold the little guy, they overcompensate with huge bent arms, like they're carrying groceries or something. I'm sure the filmmakers thought they made the best choice; after all, a space monkey thing couldn't be played by a puppet. Can a puppet blink or turn its head? Can you hold a puppet in your hands? Of course you can't. Go CGI!

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is almost completely CGI. It stars human actors, but every situation and location they find themselves in has been created with animation. It's sort of a reverse Who Framed Roger Rabbit? It's not a complete original, of course; Final Fantasy was totally CGI with realistic-looking human characters, and of course the Star Wars prequels are probably way more computer-enhanced than we realize. Sky Captain has a different, more specific tone than those movies, however; it's more mature and stylish. It falls somewhere between Casablanca and Raiders of a Lost Arc. And between Star Wars and The African Queen, with some Hudsucker Proxy and Tim Burton's Batman thrown in for good measure. And The Iron Giant. And Jurassic Park. Jeez, Sky Captain is such a mooch. Anyway, it had an awesome trailer, and I talked about it all summer. Does it live up to its awesome trailer? Does anything? The result is slightly less impressive, falling somewhere between “That movie kicked my ass!” and “That video game got really good reviews!” Sky Captain is a good movie. Is it a great movie? Well, no, and that's too bad, but what else are you gonna do with two hours?

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is set in a 1930s movie version of the future, with fedoras and trench coats and Veronica Lake hairdos, but also mechanical, machine-gunning birds and giant robot warriors. Gwyneth Paltrow stars as Polly Perkins, a dedicated reporter who cares more about her next big story than her own safety. At the beginning of the film, she's stumbled upon her biggest find yet: some of the world's most powerful scientists have been kidnapped. She's been lured to the movies (The Wizard of Oz, perhaps Sky Captain's greatest influence) by a scientist who fears he might be next on the list. It takes him forever to explain it to her; for such a good reporter, she's a little slow on the uptake. She's all “What are you trying to say?”  Dude, pay attention. Soon, she's being chased down the street by giant robots, and there are wingy contraptions flapping about, and it's Sky Captain to the rescue!

Sky Captain has, thankfully, an excellent cast. For the time period the movie is evoking, I can think of few actors more appropriate than Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow. They both look the part, and have perfected the snappy back-and-forth banter of the period (why that ever went out of style is beyond me). My favorite performance in Sky Captain belongs to Gionvanni Ribisi, as Sky Captain's sidekick/little buddy/techie Dex, who is an even mix of Robin, Jimmy Olsen and Q. He's the brains behind Sky Captain, chomping gum and inventing gadgets like the keenest ray gun ever (if it stalls, just shake it up).

Sky Captain, by first-time director Kerry Conran, plays as if it were part of some lost serial from the 1930s. I'm guessing this would be part 2 or 3. The characters already know each other, and no one seems particularly surprised to encounter, say, a giant stomping robot or Bai Ling as a goggle-wearing ninja android assassin. One character that definitely participated in a previous Sky Captain adventure is Franky, a mysterious military leader of a crew of aviators and nautical soldiers and awesome. Franky is played by Angelina Jolie, and she rocks. Franky says pulpy action-movie lines like “Alert the amphibious squadron!” wears an eye patch, and speaks in a crisp Mid-Atlantic accent (It's what Carrie Fisher calls an MGM accent, after the perfect, region-free dialect spoken by studio girls like her mother.). At one point, Franky ejector-seats up out of her submarine, and as she breaks the surface of the water, her propeller pack becomes a jet pack. Did I mention she rocks? By the way, my hat is off to whoever decided to put Jolie in the eye-patch.

So, the visuals are flawless, right? When the mechanical wing-flappers swarm in, or when Franky's ship takes on a giant, pot-bellied stove robot underwater, Sky Captain is truly breathtaking. When the actors are one-on-one with the effects is a different story. It's not that they don't look real, per se; it's more that they blend in too well. A giant bat-pterodactyl swamp thing should surprise, but it's just more pixels. The doomsday rocket-launch at the movie's climax should be heart-stopping, but I just felt, well, I guess I felt everyone would be fine, like my friend Maxx had looked up cheats for them online or something. By the end of Sky Captain, I was just watching visuals, like it was a foreign film and I had forgotten to read the subtitles.  The characterization and plot are secondary to the look of the piece, and at the end, I was left wondering what any of it was about (something about Shangri la, and an ark with exotic animals, and swamps, and rockets, and the end of the world, and look out it's gonna blow, and taking pictures. Maybe I dozed off.)

It's not that I don't appreciate extra-special special effects. I do, honest. But when there's so many effects, it's hard to pinpoint exactly which ones are supposed to be significant, and for me, it's really hard to buy that anyone is in any danger. And if Gwyneth Paltrow is running down the street (I think this is the first time I've ever seen her run, by the way), almost getting crushed by giant robots, it would help if I was the slightest bit concerned for her safety. And I wasn't.

Is it even possible to completely believe in special effects anymore? Isn't that why they keep “improving” them? So we'll become fully invested in the moment and believe that men can fly and bullets can stop and Jude Law can swim? I hope it's still true; at least it was back in 1980.

The Empire Strikes Back is finally on DVD. I'm not going to waste much of your time writing about it; precious time you need to be spending watching the thing. It's got everything going for it that Sky Captain shoots for: romantic banter, amazing visuals, and a cooler-than-you supporting player. Seriously, whoever decided to give Lando Calrissian a cape should be knighted. That dude swings. The Empire Strikes Back has something Sky Captain lacks, though: danger. The first appearance of the Imperial Walkers still gives chills, and when Luke dives off into Cloud City rather than join Vader, just try to stifle an “oh shit.”

On the commentary for The Empire Strikes Back, George Lucas laments time and again about what he feels are sub-par special effects. He believes passionately that CGI is the only logical route to movie magic. For example—I swear this is what he said—Lucas would prefer that Luke not carry the puppet Yoda around in a backpack, instead having a CGI Yoda bounce alongside. He must have loved Sky Captain. For George Lucas, The World of Tomorrow probably seems like the ultimate future. Give me 1980.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow: B
Star Wars, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back: A