Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
Directed by Kerry Conran
When gigantic robots attack New York City, "Sky Captain" uses his private air force to fight them off. His ex-girlfriend, reporter Polly Perkins, has been investigating the recent disappearance of prominent scientists. Suspecting a link between the global robot attacks and missing men, Sky Captain and Polly decide to work together. They fly to the Himalayas in pursuit of the mysterious Dr. Totenkopf, the mastermind behind the robots.
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What critics say influenced Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Drawing from a well of pulp fiction, film noir and comic book imagery--not to mention influences from "The Wizard of Oz" to Fritz Lang's "Metropolis"--Conran and crew evoke a highly stylized 1939.
"Wizard of Oz" parallels are obvious, as are connections to Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" (no relation to Superman's hometown) and various others.
But black-and-white classics rich with light and shadow, such as Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" (1927) and Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will" (1935), are also obviously major touchstones for Conran's sense of visual style, and there are also more recent influences such as the Indiana Jones series, the "Jurassic Park" series, and even "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" (1988).
There are also plenty of film geeks who know and love the pulp fantasies of the early twentieth century, from Metropolis to the serialized swashbucklers of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.
Take a cultural grab-bag of such elements as art deco, RKO radio towers, sepia tones, dutch angles, expressionism, Max Fleischer cartoons, Superman and Flash Gordon serials, "Metropolis," zeppelins mooring to the Empire State Building, Manhattan of the '30s, P-40s with their Burma-battles Fei Hu nose art, and German secret-project scientists; add a dashing fighter pilot (Jude Law) shearling-sheathed in AAF garb and an equally mercenary and hard-boiled femme reporter (Gwyneth Paltrow) done in vintage Vogue duds—then attack the lot with huge airborne robots and batwing fighters letting loose with laser weaponry and you have "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow."
The result looks like nothing you've ever seen before, compiled very knowingly from many things you probably have: film noir, sci-fi pulp adventures from the '30s with garishly exhilarating covers, old Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials, and last, but not least, German Expressionist masterpieces like "Metropolis."
While never "realistic", the world that Conran has created is as convincing as those that George Lucas and Peter Jackson, respectively, developed for the "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings" sagas.
Conran, however, does not fall into the trap of George Lucas' recent Star Wars prequels; SKY CAPTAIN is sagely aware that story is still king.
It attempts to capture the same kind of dizzy, delirious fun that's made such romps as "Star Wars" and "Raiders of the Last Ark" all-time cinematic landmarks, decades after they first burst onto the screen.
While the blue screen is hardly a new film technique--George Lucas used it back in 1977 with "Star Wars" and extensively in the latest installments--no director has forsaken sets and locations completely, making "Sky Captain" a unique new way of filming movies.
Answer: a lot like Metropolis, a tad Maltese Falcon, a somewhat Wizard of Oz, with heavy shades of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars and those old Saturday morning short TV adventure serials.
As with "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "E.T.
From German Expressionism to screwball comedy, from The Wizard of Oz to Raiders of the Lost Ark, Conran's influences often make Sky Captain seem like the fever dream of a hopeless film buff -- it may be derivative, but it's never dull.
You can check off references to movies like "Planet Of The Apes," "Metropolis," "Star Wars," and "Raiders Of The Lost Ark" as they pass by under a gauze of vintage modern trappings in a grungy deco design.
Like "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" - first-time writer-director Kerry Conran's CGI-fest which places live actors, filmed entirely against a blue screen, in a stylized New York of the 40s plagued by giant robots - mines the plots and characters of early movie serials to create the dashing titular hero (Jude Law) and his reporter love interest, Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow).
Equally indebted to Buck Rogers comics which make a brief appearance and "Raiders of the Lost Ark," the movie is straight-faced, giddy and, above all, boyish.
Its world is from a design table and its figures owe much to Terry Gilliam's inventions, like his articulated and menacing machines in "Time Bandits."