This review was originally published in The Kansas City Kansan on Sept. 22, 2004.

By Steve Crum

Anyone under 30 years old seeing Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow will love the film for reasons different from the over 30 crowd. Those young will be dazzled by the cutting edge, digital look of the film. It is the first feature ever to be mostly shot using “blue screen” with computer graphics later added. 

Then there is the non-stop action including car-crunching, giant robots, outer space dinosaurs, and wing-flapping, drone airplanes. 

Writer-Director Kerry Conran’s debut film has a second hook for older viewers: their own movie memories.

There are not only quick references, but entire sequences, settings and dialogue cut and pasted within Sky Captain’s busy framework. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a collage of film clips from other movies. Instead it is a remarkable picture peppered with stream-of-consciousness, 1930s media imagery. And it is all wrapped around a corny, hero-to-the-rescue formula that works. It is also 98 percent animated.

Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow star as Joe “Sky Captain” Sullivan and reporter Polly Perkins. Along with a handful of actual human beings including Angelina Jolie’s eye-patched heroine, Captain Franky Cook, Law and Paltrow act in their real human skins. Director Conran has made sure their costumes are classic comic book correct, however.

Adding a curious blend of sepia tones with subdued colors, the overall film really nails the period look. Plot wise, the story opens as the Hindenburg III dirigible floats near the top of New York’s Empire State Building. As clouds roll in and snow starts to fall, radio broadcasts bellow that the world’s top scientists are mysteriously disappearing. Lumbering robots fly into the city and land upright, smashing everything in their pats as they march along busy streets. Lucky for the Big Apple that Chronicle reporter Polly Perkins knows Sky Captain’s private phone line. (They have had adventures together before, you see.) Soon the air ace speeds his Flying Tiger plane toward NYC and…and—continued in the movie theatre. I can’t spoil too much of this good thing.

Be aware that there are more good guys, including Giovanni Ribisi’s Dex Dearborn. Think of Dex and his relationship with Sky Captain as what Artemus Gordon was to James West in TV’s The Wild, Wild West. There is also a really bad guy called Dr. Totenkopf, “played by” the late Laurence Olivier. Yes, Olivier died 15 years ago, but his face has been digitalized onto this animated villain! Make that a very posthumous appearance by Lord Olivier. How retro can one get?

The movie’s 107 minutes manages to layer in so many fun images and action sequences that a second viewing is advised. You are bound to enjoy it just as much the second time around. Then you can savor the clever references to classics like Metropolis, Buck Rogers, and Flash Gordon. Even the Fleischer Studios’ Superman cartoons (particularly “Mechanical Monsters”) are recalled. If you are familiar with Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast, you are in for another treat. 

As for main characters, Sky and Polly borrow from the Indiana Jones school of relationships. It’s the love/hate thing Indie has with all his heroines. 

Surely the duo have signed for Sky Captain’s next nail biting adventure. 

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GRADE on an A-F Scale: A