LYNX THOUGHTS

Sky Captain

Taking a break from my machine woes this weekend, I went to see Sky Captain and the World of Tommorow. I'd only heard about the film a few weeks ago, but it intrigued me immediatly and I thought it would be good to go see...

Right off the bat, the film posesses elements that are worth points in my book. For one, while I'm not a fan of 60s style, I am a fan of the Hyper-Retro aerial creations found in such things as Disney's Tale Spin and FASA's Crimson Skies. With that as a base and wrapped around the world, the imagery appeals to me. Secondly, I can am often a fan of films that takes a nifty style/theme (usually wrapped in a way of storytelling) and just runs with it. So the film had some things going for it before I set foot in the theatre.

The three word verdict: "I enjoyed it."

The visuals were often tasty, and the premise not horrible. Unfortunetaly, that is all that is going for this film. Maybe the serials of the 50's were really like that, but if there's a film that better demonstrates the tendency of holywood to have the 'plot', such as it is, be nothing more than a clothesline upon which to hang action or visuals. To describe this as vignettes would be doing the word vignette injustice. The characters also never fully formed beyond their snapshots. It's a very fun ride to see, and still surprisingly easy to get into -- I'm not dissapointed I saw the film (and only a touch of err at full price too) but I can't say I'd necessarily be interested in seeing it again.

• I've talked a lot about this (maybe not in this medium) but you put actors in front of nothing but a blue screen for every shot, and you'll get nothing but bluescreen acting. The striking difference can be felt in the LotR series -- so much done with props or on location (with armour so detailed they detailed the INSIDE, even though you'll never see it) that it reflected in the actors emotions and emoting.


• The soft-colour effect was very nice and worked well. The CG was also mostly well done (especially given the fact it was ALL CG) but there were definite locations where the 40-year-old problem (appropriate?) of light fringing or different lighting levels made the compositing obvious. Not to mention the painfully obvious mis-timing of real vs CG action.


• For all the promise of cool aircraft, Sky Captain's plane was, while James Bond-ed to the max, rather plain and boring.


• They made it back to the water awfully quick from 100km


• The quality of the robot designs ranged from good to eh.


• Lots of references to other films and/or real-world things are thrown in the film -- almost too many as it starts to get to be too much like a game.


• Very repetitive at times -- ok, she really likes her camera/film, is always going back into danger for them, always talking about how many photos she has left -- WE GET IT.


• I swear there's one point in the film where the heroine is supposedly looking through some documents but she's speaking like she's reading a voice over script. That's what counts as plot development. It's not even a talking head, its someone going into a non-movie trance and telling you the backstory. It basically happens again and again too.


• The fly-over-globe-map-world effect was nice. For the most part, the storytelling style was well done, maybe a bit thickly laid on at times, but otherwise nifty.


• I don't remember any cues from the soundtrack, so I don't reckon it was that compelling (but not jarring either).

Glad I saw it, enjoyed myself.