• Genres: Action, Adventure, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
• Tagline: Join the Resistance
• Plot Outline After New York City receives a series of attacks from giant flying robots, a reporter teams up with a pilot in search of their origin, as well as the reason for the disappearances of famous scientists around the world.
• Plot Synopsis: Set in New York City circa 1939, the film centers on a reporter who notices that the world’s scientists are disappearing. Teamed with a skilled pilot and an adventurous colleague, it’s up to her to thwart the plans of a mad scientist bent on world domination.
• Plot Keywords: Neo Noir | Character Name In Title | Death | Alternative Reality | Airplane | 1930s | Zeppelin | Robot | Reporter | Scientist | Aerial Combat
• Actors: Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Gambon, Ling Bai
• Directors: Kerry Conran

Editorial Review

While setting a milestone in the progress of digital filmmaking, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow resurrects a nostalgic fantasy world derived from a wide variety of vintage inspirations. It’s a dazzling dream for anyone who appreciates the look and feel of golden-age sci-fi pulp magazines, drawing its unique, all-digital design from such diverse sources as Howard Hawks adventures, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, Buck Rogers, Blackhawk comics, The Third Man, cliffhanger serials, and the action-packed Indiana Jones franchise. Writer-director Kerry Conran’s feature debut is also guaranteed to inspire digital dreamers everywhere, suggesting a paradigm shift in the way CGI-dominated movies are made. It’s a giddy adventure for the young and young-at-heart, in which ace pilot “Sky Captain” Joe Sullivan (Jude Law) and intrepid reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) must save the world from a mad scientist whose vision of the future has tragic implications for all humankind. Angelina Jolie drops in for a glorified cameo, but it’s the ultra-fortunate neophyte Conran who’s the star here. His clever riff on The Wizard of Oz is a marvel to behold, and the method of its creation is nothing less than revolutionary. –Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker

At first, it might seem curious that the writer-director Kerry Conran chose to use his digital wizardry to re-create the look of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” and other Expressionist films, but the nineteen-twenties were a time when the language of film was in a fluid, experimental stage, as directors refined their use of montage, transparency, and camera effects. Now, with the increased realism of computer-generated images, directors like Conran seem propelled by a new sense of possibility about what can be accomplished onscreen. In any event, “Sky Captain” is an amazing technical achievement, seamlessly integrating A-list actors into an imaginary world-only, at times, one wishes that this world weren’t so dark (literally). Would Conran’s computer renderings seem fake in full daylight, or is his commitment to noir just a shade too extreme? His dedication to the celluloid past, however, is beyond question-among the plentiful homages, the immortal Laurence Olivier has a cameo from the crypt. The story is a pastiche of classic sci-fi adventures, with Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow as an aviator and reporter on the trail of a doomsday cult. If the movie is powered more by its rousing, brassy score than by its emotional connections, the slack is taken up by the continuous revelation of Conran’s visual inventions. -Michael Agger

Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker