n the 1930s, the grand zeppelin Hindenburg III slips through the clouds and snow over Manhattan, searchlights raking its sides, until it docks gently at the top of the Empire State Building. Aboard is a nervous scientist with a package to be delivered to a colleague in New York.
At the Chronicle newspaper, meanwhile, intrepid reporter Polly Perkins (Paltrow) gets a mysterious message: a copy of Newton's Principia Mathematica, with a ticket to an afternoon screening of The Wizard of Oz at Radio City Music Hall.
In the theater, Polly finds the source, who fears he may be the next in a series of famous scientists to disappear, victims of a shadowy figure known only as Totenkopf. He slips Polly two metal vials. That's when the city alarm sounds. An attack is underway!
Outside, Polly looks up to see squadrons of flying machines over New York. The machines land, morphing into giant robots. They stride uptown, shoulders smashing buildings, feet crunching cars. Police machine guns have no effect.
Instead of running, Polly whips out her trusty camera and begins to snap photos. But when Polly stumbles and nearly loses her camera, she finds herself in the machines' path.
Not to worry: The emergency call has gone out to Sky Captain (Law), an ace pilot and leader of the Flying Legion. In his P-40 Warhawk airplane, Sky Captain swoops among the skyscrapers of Manhattan, wing guns blazing, saving Polly in the nick of time.
Back on his island base, Sky Captain finds Polly waiting for him. The two, who clearly have issues from the past, agree to join forces to find Totenkopf, the man behind the robots. With the help of gadget ace Dex (Ribisi) and, later, female British flight officer Franky Cook (Jolie), the two set out to discover the secret behind Totenkopf and the world of tomorrow.
Pretty pictures, but paltry plot
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, from fledgling writer/director Conran, is more than a retro-flavored SF adventure story. Producer Jon Avnet and erstwhile art student Conran call it a revolutionary new approach to filmmaking itself: a live-action movie in which only the actors are real. All of the backgrounds, vehicles, environments, creatures and visual effects are computer-generated and rendered around the performers in post-production.
The result is dazzling to look at: otherworldly images of places and things that never existed, rendered with loving care and an artist's eye. But like a chromed rocket with no engine, Sky Captain looks all shiny but never quite lifts off.
The key problem, as in so many otherwise noble moviemaking science projects, is the script. Like its signature robots, Sky Captain is hammered together from disparate pieces: Indiana Jones, His Girl Friday, Max Fleischer Superman cartoons, King Kong, The Wizard of Oz and Flash Gordon, among others. But like Oz's Tin Man, Sky Captain has no real heart at its center. Sky Captain, Polly, Dex and Franky all feel as thin as gossamer, though there is plenty of smart banter and, at least in the case of Law, Ribisi and Jolie, heroic acting in the face of daunting technical challenges.
Paltrow, on the other hand, seems overmatched by the movie machinery around her. At several points, particularly when facing down the giant robots or contemplating a room full of dynamite, Paltrow gives off the impression that she isn't really looking at anything at all.
Beyond that, the story progresses as mechanically as its various droids, merely an excuse to show off the movie's technology.
Sky Captain isn't completely bad, though. The movie's action is top-flight, the villainous Totenkopf is played by an actor whose identity will surprise viewers, and Conran seems to have captured a lot of the spirit of the '30s serials that are Sky Captain's forebears. In particular, Conran's production designer and brother, Kevin Conran, displays great wit in the movie's retro-future design.
