An interesting piece of trivia to note about this movie is that it was entirely shot against a blue screen with everything, except its main characters, computer-generated. Probably, this fact in itself may not be of much significance to the average movie-goer, but what most people (like myself) would find fascinating is the highly stylized look and feel of the film which seem as if a vintage comic-book has been magically brought to life. But that is the intention of first-time director Kerry Conran, whose six-minute reel of CGI robots trampling through New York around a decade ago was the original inspiration for this film...
Critics who accuse Sky Captain of being an unoriginal piece of work are right; there are so many borrowed ideas abound here that to keep track of them would be quite an arduous task. But this is no distasteful rojak of ideas; instead, Sky Captain is a delicious concoction of retro influences -- from Christopher Reeves' Superman movies to Spielberg's Indiana Jones franchise. It's such a pity then that the scripting was sorely wanting; supporting actors Angelina Jolie and Giovanni Ribisi, for instance, had very forgettable one-liners & I feel that their characters were not fleshed out sufficiently enough. Furthermore, the plot-twists were a leetle too comic-book-ish for my liking... Fortunately however, the easy chemistry between the leads, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow, (and their love-hate camaraderie) more than compensates for the inherent flaws of the film.
The constant use of soft focus and sombre colors might aggravate most people but seriously, I advise against closing or taking your eyes off the screen lest you miss some quaint detail which Conran's imagination had conjured up with painstaking detail... On the whole, Sky Captain may not be equipped with state-of-the-art, bombastic CGI effects or a strong, gripping storyline, yet, I think, it still manages to charm with its subtle touches of film noir, retro-style storytelling and visual fiesta of fantastical imageries.
my ratings -- 4/5 stars~!!!
