Rating (from metacritic.com): 64/100
Storyline (from IMDB.com):
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.
Source: My personal collection
Review:
I love this movie. There, I said it. I saw this movie in theaters and I bought it on DVD. I wish there had been a sequel or something, because this is my kind of movie.
Then I made the mistake of reading the reviews. Most are 3-4 lines, mostly saying it sucked WITH NO EXPLANATION AS TO WHY. If you’re going to write a review, take some time. Dammit people, put some effort into your criticism. I do.
Why is this my kind of movie? It’s a Neo-Pulp movie, meaning it’s trying to recreate the feeling of Pulp works. And it did the job for me.
Let’s start with the plot and background. We have our characters: lady reporter Polly Perkins and Sky Captain, AKA Joe or Joseph, an evil doctor and robots. We know next to nothing about how these characters developed, starting media res as the movie does. Polly learns about a group of scientists that have been vanishing all over the world. Soon after meeting Dr. Vargas, New York City is attacked by giant robots, that begin to tear up generators beneath the streets. It’s during this attack that we get introduced to our title character: Sky Captain. He flies around his P-40, doing his best to destroy the robots without firing a shot. He then flies back to his secluded island base somewhere in upstate New York.
After talking with his friend and super-scientist inventor Dex, Sky Captain goes back to his office, only to be surprised by Polly. It turns out they used to be lovers, until she (maybe) sabotaged his plane, resulting in a prison sentence for Joe. They bicker, Polly finds out there have been robots running around for several years. They go find the next scientist who’s going to die/disappear and then get back to the airfield in time for the next attack.
This is where the movie starts to really show what it can do. You have snappy dialogue, strong visuals and decent special affects. showing characters dodging through city streets, weapons firing, is what the movie was intended to do. After a bit of time, Polly and Joe track the transmission to Nepal. How do they do this? I don’t know; who cares? This is what Pulp is all about. Over-the-top, kick-ass action and awesome (fake) science. Sadly, when the two arrive in Nepal, the movie starts to go down hill. For some reason, the evil doctor has human agents, who somehow end up being hired by Joe’s old friend. Okay…? Then, they try to kill everyone and get away with the things that Polly has been hiding from Joe for a while. After surviving Certain Death in typical Pulp fashion, they end up in Shangri-La, where they find one of the survivors of the Evil Doctor’s uranium mines and get the next lead in the hunt.
Which leads us… well, I don’t exactly know where. Somewhere in the middle of an ocean. I’d imagine it’s the Atlantic, what with an underwater city around the island. There we finally get to see Angelina Jolie’s character. She’s only on screen for 13 minutes, but she does a good job of showing just who Joe would step out on his girl with. She also gives us the main character’s real name. We’re almost to the end of the movie, and we discover that Sky Captain is really Joseph Sullivan. Oddly enough, by then it kinda fits him. Continuing the plot, we get to see more pulp science, with visual sonar, amphibious planes and flying air carriers – which I totally enjoyed, by the way. There are robots under water and a good fight scene before we finally arrive at the ‘Mysterious Uncharted Island.’ I swear, you could feel the capital letters when they arrived. There’s a bit of character development and some running around, where we get glimpses of the Evil Doctor’s island of monsters. Why is he creating monsters when he’s going to leave the earth and take two of every animal? Who cares? They end up inside, find out that not only is the plan to shoot an ark off into space, but that it’s going to destroy the world when it leaves. This is what pulp villains do. They go for the gold in Evil. The rocket is well done, with the egomaniacal touches that make this movie so enjoyable.
In the end, Sky Captain saves the day, and it turns out the Evil Doctor has been dead all along, his robots continuing to carry out his will long after he has passed away. He also seems to have changed his mind---too late to stop what he has put in motion.
Let’s talk about some things that weren’t so good about this movie. It was too far outside the current norm, which can be hard for some people to take. I liked it, but some people just don’t get that the point was to be over-the-top. It wasn’t trying to be quality, edgy, great or mainstream blockbuster. It wanted to capture a bygone era of entertainment history, which most people in my generation just haven’t experienced. It was imaginative but was also harking back to a lot of stuff that has been overdone.
I really tried to suspend my disbelief for this movie, and it wasn't too hard, but there were a few things I just couldn’t get past. For example, Sky Captain plows his plane into the ocean, knowing that his plane can move underwater. However, the airframe isn't designed to handle the stress of a direct impact on the water’s surface, as the robot bird-planes show us when they impact. Speaking of which, it clearly shows them crash into the water, but when we flash back to Sky Captain’s plane, there's no debris behind it. Small thing, mildly annoying. Then we have the whole amphibious plane thing and it does the same thing. Hitting the water at several hundred feet per second would be like hitting an asphalt street at those speeds. There would be carnage.
Major and minor flaws aside, I enjoyed the hell out of this movie. If you haven’t seen it, give it a try. It was what The Phantom and The Shadow tried but failed to be. It was Pulp in look, and in style and it was satisfying Pulp.
Final Thoughts: It you don’t like old movies, you’ll hate this one. If you can’t appreciate what this movie was trying to do, I feel sorry for you.
It was a GOOD movie.
Coming Soon: Krull
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