SKY CAPTAIN AND THE MARKETING OF TODAY REVIEW

Early word on this film, early images, conjured the greatest of all geek hopes. Would this, could this, be another Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark? Or would it be just another effects-laden, empty spectacle? The truth lies somewhere in between. The fact that Sky Captain didn’t open during the summer season was one tip off. The talk back and sneak reviews were another. Director Kerry Conran has created one of the most visually arresting films in ages, but it is one that lumbers almost lifelessly at times drawing mental comparisons to the great sci fi art illustration of Kelly Freas, the Superman animation of Fliescher and the undeveloped story as spectacle that has overtaken mainstream fantastic film in an age where image is everything.

Ultimately Sky Captain makes itself felt deepest as a sort of pastiche that never comes together to tell a worthwhile story. There are moments of action, moments of tension but none of it is sustained by the narrative and feels borrowed. “Why won’t you die?” says Sky Captain at one point. It’s a genre grab, a line that’s been used better a thousand times, put in Sky Captain’s script because the writer simply didn’t have anything better or more compelling for his character to say in his by the numbers standoff with the villains henchman.

But then again it’s hard to write in the moment when your lead character is a simple homage rather than a complex emotional being like Indiana Jones or Han Solo. All the characters in Sky Captain are forced to spout this dialogue because director Kerry Conran clearly loves old Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers type serials. His grasp of genre is good but not his grasp of story if what made it to the screen is any indiciation.

But if Sky Captain doesn’t live up it’s potential to offer the next great franchise (and don’t we need another Buck Rogers? Flash Gordon?) it does succeed in kicking off the fall movie season with a big effects bang. As mentioned above the look of the film is jaw droppingly beautiful. Imagine a much more active What Dreams May Come? But that very beauty may also be a problem. The sound was quite muted in the theater I saw Sky Captain, which may explain the following, but the art style of the film turns everything, even big explosive action sequences, iinto a painting. Actors, scenery, effects, everything blends together in a way that makes being able to feel part of the world you’re looking at difficult.

The vision of Sky Captain is utterly alien. Could I possibly imagine myself up there glowing like some cover from a pulp magazine? People, explosions, it’s all just there to gawk at. Closeups crowd the screen and extras are merely artful symbols posed like figures from world war II posters. None of this is to say you won’t have a good time at the movies but you surely won’t be enciuntering the next revolution in filmmaking (as the commercials to Sky Captain promise). For geeks, true genre fans, that lofty yearning is still part of the world of tommorow.

Review simultaneously posted at Imagine Dat!