Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)

 

Director: Kerry Conran

Screenplay: Kerry Conran

Cast: Gwyneth Paltrow as Polly Perkins; Jude Law as Sky Captain; Giovanni Ribisi as Dex; Michael Gambon as Editor Paley; Bai Ling as Mysterious Woman; Omid Djalili as Kaji; Laurence Olivier as Dr. Totenkopf; Angelina Jolie as Franky

Ephemeral Waves

 

Why did I hate this once? Likely, I was not gelling with its tone, and big budget Hollywood films from this when my family used to rent them constantly eventually started to put me off by the 2010s. In the time having past with a wider and more open taste in cinema returning to titles, this particular one also has an underdog nature to it I have to admire to, as this was literally a passion project for its creator-director-writer Kerry Conran, who grew up loving the pulp work this was inspired by, wanted to make a film like it, and managed with nothing else in his resume beforehand to get the production off the ground as a Hollywood film.

Sky Captain is also a work where you see a prototype of the digital green screen use in later Hollywood films, Conran in his own way having been ahead of the curve in terms of productions using CGI, something which was new and being experimented upon the 2000s with films like Sin City (2004), Casshern (2004) from Japan, or Immortel (ad vitam) (2004) from France among others. These films were ahead of their time, but also of them alongside their storytelling need you to been on their wavelengths to get a lot out of. Sky Captain in particular is pure spectacle as an action film built from its then-innovative special effects, which for my younger self was clearly a slog. It is a  work with a very basic plot entirely surrounding its then-radical "digital backlot" production, where barring the actors the sets are entirely in computer effects, something which was relatively new and being experimented upon in the 2000s but has wider implications decades on when even costume and hair design can be digitally altered on actors.

Set in an alternative 1939, this is pulp thirties to forties pulp storytelling brought together - some noir trappings, giant robots flying over New York City emphasising the science fiction and adventure - surrounding missing scientists and a doomsday scenario involving reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) and the Sky Captain Joe Sullivan (Jude Law), the later an independent pilot and his mercenary team brought in when global thefts of resources by giant robots happen. The limitations are now visible on a film which was ahead of its time but also working around some limitations, that this cast is (almost) entirely on green screen and that barring extras, there is a noticeably small cast here, trying to work around an elaborate pulp story in terms of bringing it to screen in a then-unheard of process unless you had seen world films like Casshern. Even next to CGI in the later 2000s, this has obviously aged, but it has a style even with the heavy emphasis on muting most colour and grey which is distinct. What it feels like, even as a passion project, is a film which, if elaborate in tone already, could have blossomed into a wider franchise if it had been successful. It's tone taken from old pulp work which had sequels is found in the few titbits we see - that Sky Captain is a figure all nations calls to, and the small cast, including Angelina Jolie as Franky, --, the captain of a flying airbase, and surprisingly for me comedian Omid Djalili as Kaji, a comedic sidekick but one who is never a butt of jokes. As a one off it tells enough, but without wanting to get into the potentially credulous world of movie franchises, there was enough here to expand out into a more grander world if it had been be a hit even if the original film is dealing with the potential apocalypse. Future stories, especially as other influences such as forties cinema and the touch stones of fifties sci-fi could have easily slid into this.

It has the tone you would find in a pulp paperback, and that in itself does entice, and I grow to admire this barring how, truly, this does feel a film still playing it very safe. This is one of the more notable things in how, whilst elaborate, there is not a lot of risk in the story telling. Even as a work based on old pulp, that does mostly soak away to become like the action films from the time, only with the fact that, as our sole main characters, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law are clearly tapping into screwball comedy love-hate bickering in-between those scenes (and within them) to flesh them out. Like many titles from these films, and even animated films like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), whether good or bad, their greatest flaws is how the plots are quite conventional, likely to be able to get them off the ground as productions when their budgets were focused on getting the technology off the ground; Casshern and Immortal are stranger films, and Sin City comes with the knowledge Robert Rodriguez, its helmer, made his name making films as independently as possible. The passion is here, before anyone thinks I want to dismiss Kerry Conran's hard work, but barring some quirks, like a cameo of a tiny elephant or a brief trip to Shangri-La, a lot of Sky Captain could have been remade with traditional Hollywood production from the time, the innovation in the flair for its time period aesthetic. One thing which does feel like it was ahead of its time, and complete missed when this subject is more a topic of great discussion, is the casting of Sir Lawrence Olivier in a key role. Olivier had passed in 1989, so this in his use, a hologram in the film, is ahead of its time in terms of depicting and casting a passed actor in a film, something which became more a controversial subject into the 2010s. Be it Peter Cushing returning for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), or the attempt to include James Dean (replicated onscreen digitally) in a Vietnam War film that was seen as a taboo¹, this is a contentious subject in terms of memento mori. Olivier's appearance does show how ahead of the time this was, when Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow itself has become more of a cult film in time for what it was attempting to do, and people merely batted an eyelid to this inclusion.

Reading into how this was a project Kerry Conran wanted to make before he even gotten into Hollywood has made me soften to this, and truth be told, it is a fun film. My older self's absolutely hostility to it comes connected entirely to how these type of films once were like a white noise once, which has changed entirely now in the modern day. Tragically, this was not a box office success, and Conran has not helmed another theatrical film; thankfully he at least got to make a film in a way he clearly wished it to turn out, and returning to Sky Captain, I have nothing but respect for its existence now.

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1) Filmmakers Say James Dean’s Family is ‘Fully Supportive’ of Bringing Back Actor for Vietnam War Drama, written by Dave McNary for Variety, and published November 8th 2019.