DVD Movie Rating for: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

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Movie Plot of: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

n 1939, an intrepid reporter in New York City makes a connection between the story she's covering-- of famous scientists suddenly disappearing around the world, and a recent attack on the city by giant robots. Determined to find the solution to these happenings, she seeks the help of her ex-boyfriend, the captain of a mercinary legion of pilots. The two are investigating the case when the robots attack the city again, though in a stroke of luck, Sky Captain's right hand man is able to locate their source. They then set off on an adventure in search of the evil mastermind behind these schemes, who is bent on creating a utopia and destroying the current world.

DVD Production Details of: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

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Cast of the movie: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

• Gwyneth Paltrow.... Polly Perkins
• Jude Law .... Joe 'Sky Captain' Sullivan
• Giovanni Ribisi .... Dex Dearborn
• Michael Gambon .... Editor Morris Paley
• Ling Bai .... Mysterious Woman (as Bai Ling)
• Omid Djalili .... Kaji
• Laurence Olivier .... Dr. Totenkopf (archive footage) (as Sir Laurence Olivier)
• Angelina Jolie .... Capt. Francesca 'Franky' Cook
• Trevor Baxter .... Dr. Walter Jennings
• Julian Curry .... Dr. Jorge Vargas
• Peter Law .... Dr. Kessler
• Jon Rumney .... German Scientist
• Khan Bonfils .... Creepy
• Samta Gyatso .... Scary
• Louis Hilyer .... Executive Officer
• Mark Wells .... Communications Engineer
• James Cash .... Uniformed Officer
• Tenzin Bhagen .... Priest
• Thupten Tsondru .... Dying Old Man
• Matthew Grant .... Crewman
• Steve Morphew .... Crewman
• Nancy Crane .... Receptionist
• Stuart Milligan .... Police Sergeant
• Paul Canter .... Police Officer
• Demetri Goritsas .... Radio Operator
• William Hope .... American Broadcaster
• Jonathan Keeble .... British Broadcaster
• Stephane Cornicard .... French Broadcaster
• Stephen Ballantyne .... German Broadcaster
• Victor Sobchak .... Russian Broadcaster
• Mido Himadi .... Soldier
• Gerard Monaco .... Technician
• Chris Robson .... Hindenburg Porter
• Matthew Coulter .... Hindenburg Boy
• Merritt Yohnka .... Construction Worker
• David Decio .... Pilot

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Reviews of the movie: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

When "The Lord of the Rings" conquered the Oscars, director Peter Jackson seemed to thank the nation of New Zealand, the site of the trilogy's breathtaking backdrop, more than the actors. If "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" wins awards, who will pioneering creator Kerry Conran thank? The municipality of Steve Jobs?

Because, except for the real live actors, everything in "Sky Captain" was created on that wonder of wonders: the computer.

Enterprising reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) and crusading aviator Joe "Sky Captain" Sullivan (Jude Law) are out to save the world from annihilation--and this is a world like you've never seen on screen. Unlike cartoony CGI idols "Shrek" and "Toy Story," the high-definition, sepia "Sky Captain" looks and feels like a classic comic book, with depth and dimension to spare.

It took first-time writer/director Conran 10 years to complete his rollicking machine-animated vision, starting in his basement on a Mac, ending up at a warehouse in Van Nuys and attracting buzz and star power along the way. With no set, actors like Angelina Jolie (the film's weak link) and Giovanni Ribisi (who plays Joe's assistant Dex) performed the entire movie against a bare blue screen, playing make-believe with only a computer-generated grid on the floor to guide their movements. Even the film was put through the ringer--literally. (Conran ran the color film through a diffusion filter, tinted the diffused images black and white and then added color back in.)

The verdict? Conran has got himself a looker, with Gwyneth Paltrow in soft focus, the whole world larger than life and a title that, said in the proper low-pitched voice, conveys the tone of the film: exuberant, idiosyncratic and timeless.

Drawing from a well of pulp fiction, film noir and comic book imagery--not to mention influences from Gwyneth Paltrow" to Gwyneth Paltrow "Metropolis"--Conran and crew evoke a highly stylized 1939. It's both futuristic and retro, leavened with a shimmering wink and a nod. (Joe surprises Polly by turning his flyer into a submarine and gleefully exclaims, "Dex dreamed it up! Got it from one of his comic books!")

The story is classic: When giant robots trample New York and renowned scientists go missing, enterprising reporter Polly reunites with her former flame, hero-for-hire Joe, to stop the madness. It ends up that the trampling and the disappearing both lead to one evildoer: Dr. Totenkopf (who appears as a suspended image of a young Laurence Olivier).

Totenkopf lives near the remote area of Shambala (which, we learn, the Hebrews call Eden and the Americans Shangri-La), where Polly and Joe must journey to rescue a kidnapped Dex and the world. So no, Conran didn't just spend a decade of his life creating another Gotham--he's given us the snowy Himalayas, the murky ocean's bottom and mobile airstrips in the sky. Nothing is exactly realistic--that's the beauty of it, actually. "Sky Captain" is sophisticated enough to know how absurd it all is. After being asked to swallow a whole bunch of CGI garbage as the truth and the light, it's a blast to watch a movie laugh at itself.

Also, and this was the biggest surprise, Gwyneth Paltrow and Gwyneth Paltrow are funny. As their characters bicker and banter through robot attacks and dynamite explosions, the ridiculously handsome duo boasts real chemistry and sexual tension.

If this fall is to catapult Jude Law into official superstar territory--he's in six movies scheduled to open before the end of the year--"Sky Captain" is the perfect springboard, letting him flex his dashing action muscles and considerable charm.

Gwyneth Paltrow, dressed by Stella McCartney with locks awash in the light of some guy's computer, smartly plays Polly as part classy dame, part plucky broad. (And though we're not supposed to single out a gal's looks for fear of appearing sexist, Paltrow looks just perfect.)

"Sky Captain" is one of those risky movies that could have crashed and burned, taking 10 years of some young man's life down with it. A large part of its success is in the gamble and the gall.

Layered with emotion and tugging at our heartstrings? Not quite. But (clear throat, effect booming voice): It's something new! Something different! And--whew--it works!

"Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow"

Written and directed by Kerry Conran; photographed by Eric Adkins; production designed by Kevin Conran; music by Edward Shearmur; visual effects supervised by Scott E. Anderson; edited by Sabrina Plisco; produced by Jon Avnet, Marsha Oglesby, Sadie Frost and Jude Law. A Paramount Pictures release; opens Friday.

The movie opens with the Hindenberg III docking, which means it's a world where zeppelins are still flying in 1939, safely — we assume that's because they're using helium rather than hydrogen. But the zeppelins at the mercenary island — see below — explode when they're shot, rather than just deflating. So there are still some hydrogen-filled dirigibles around, despite, we assume, the Hidenberg/R101/Akron/Macon disasters... This is a world where there's a mercenary air base — much like, and with former members of, the American Volunteer Group (The Flying Tigers) from Indo-China — about an hour's drive from Manhattan... There are aerial aircraft carriers, yet Sky Captain Joe Sullivan (Jude Law) still flies a P-40 (the Flying Tigers planes from 1939), which was a 300 mph plane, tops, yet at one point the robot planes chasing him are reported to be capable of 500 mph... These robot fighters are based on the twin-jet powered Horton HO-X or Messerschmitt 1011 flying wing fighters the Luftwaffe would have put up in late 1945 if they hadn't run out of war first, only these are ornithopters — they fly by flapping their wings like a crow, or Airboy's plane Birdie from the comic book (and still go 500 mph...) There are B-24s like Hal Clement flew over Ploesti in the war, but operating in 1939 here, not just prototypes. There are giant robots by the squadron, any one of which would take the GNP of the British Empire to build and run in 1939. There are working ray guns. Dex (Giovanni Ribisi, the young Dr. Heur part, i.e., the super-inventor brains behind Sky Captain's operation; if this had been publishing in Campbell's Astounding, Dex would have been the hero, and with good reason) says "Shazam!" in 1939, which means Whiz Comics started a year earlier in this world; it's snowing so it must be late winter 1939 or late fall 1939 — and it must be late fall, as Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) refers to WWI. It wasn't called WWI until after September 1, 1939, when Hitler crosses into Poland and started WWII, in our world. Before then it was called The Great War. But then, when they're flying in Nepal, there's a reference to March when Sky Captain looks in his aviational Ephemerides. Also, WWI must have been fought at a higher technological level, from the photos we see... I'm telling you all this because I care... You can't fault a movie like this from the glitches I list above. Like Moulin Rouge, any mistakes are not the result of pretesting by committee. These are one guy's choices: they come with the vision. People run/drive/swim/fly around all movie, chasing what is eventually a human McGuffin. (For those of you living way down in wells the past month or so, for whom the revelation will spoil things, I'll refrain from telling you the name of the actor playing Dr. Totenkopf — that's Dr. Death's Head to you.)

The plot, such as can be described without spoiling the really swell stuff: German scientists are being mysteriously killed. The last on the hit list sets up a rendezvous with reporter Polly Perkins to spill his soul about his work with the sinister Totenkopf (albeit mysteriously enough to avoid spoiling the later surprises). Just then giant robots attack New York (I hate it when that happens) to steal some subterranean generators. (Although Totenkopf can build entire armies of giant robots, and later we see his secret island base (think Blofeld's volcano from You Only Live Twice, as designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and Albert Speer on a budget that would bleed Bill Gates dry) has technology so advanced it might as well have been built by the Krell, he can't build generators?) Turns out they've been stealing things from all over the world. A visit to the last scientist results in him slipping two vials (which turn out to be the McGuffin within the McGuffin) to Polly just before dying while Sky Captain gets the snot beat out of him by Totenkopf's mysterious assistant (Bai Ling, in silent yet ass-kicking form). (Polly is burdened by having to perform both of the Idiot Plot exercises, both involving the McGuffin.) Sky Captain's own base gets attacked, and Dex snatched just before he fixes the coordinates for their radio control signal in Nepal. And after that, it's wonders, each one bigger than the last, all the way down. (And the other Bond film it resembles is Moonraker...)

Acting is generally pretty good. Giovanni Ribisi nails Dex, and Angelina Jolie steals the show in a small but juicy role. Jude Law is good, but needs a little more raffish charm, a bit more Han Solo, or at least Errol Flynn.Gwyneth Paltrow is the weakest of the principles, coming across more as laid back than hard as nails, probably a combination of slight miscasting, a first-time director, and the inherent problems of working entirely against bluescreens. Her Polly Perkins is sort of a Lois Lane with brains; the added bit of characterization is that she and Sky Captain have a history — a "we'll always have Nanking" kind — that is the driving engine of the character. Of course, the ante is upped when Jolie's character shows up — she and Sky Captain have also been an item. Michael Gambon, one of the finer actors on this planet, anyway, has a part that could have been filmed in 20 minutes one morning — he's the gruff, yet caring, editor of the major NY daily for whom Perkins works. Essentially in this film — like in pulp and comic books antecedents — the characters don't change; they just have to work harder within their set personalities. And things are open-ended enough that plugging sequels and prequels into it presents no problems. (More Dex and Frankie, please.)

Some of the robots here are out of the 1942-44 Fleischer Superman cartoons, esp. Mechanical Monsters. Some, I swear, came from Magnus, Robot Fighter comic books of the early 1960s, especially the ones we see on Totenkopf's Island.

There are several scenes where you (in W. H. Frohock's immortal words on James M. Cain) swallow the whole 6 lb ham, can and all, and only later say "Ouch!". The movie's also smart enough to build off these scenes, until, by the end of the movie, you're swallowing the whole hog (and giraffe). Neil Gaiman once said that "suspension of disbelief is sometimes much harder to pop than you would imagine," but here, they really, really try, each improbable wonder a mere scaffold to pile on an even bigger and more improbable wonder than the last. (The giant propeller-driven aerial aircraft carrier should send avionics engineers racing for their slide-rules to calculate just how many orders of magnitude its existing propulsion system would be short of actually keeping it aloft. And there are at least four more Big Science revelations after that point which are even less likely.) But while the logical portion of your mind is telling you just how impossible each scene is, your eyes are still fooled by just how gorgeous everything looks. It's as if Wiley Coyote could keeping running to the other side of the chasm on sheer momentum. As for production values, the way this thing is done is every bit as good as the way they hyped it. (They'll have to figure out what categories people go into at awards time — I mean, are you a set decorator even when there's no set?) There's one effect that does Raiders of the Lost Ark's "plane flying across the map bit" one better, laying latitude and longitude grid lines, compass devices, and map legends across the landscape itself, and then later, submerged below the surface of the ocean, that has to be seen to grasp exactly how indescribably cool it is.

The one review I allowed myself to see (as this was delayed from late May to July to now) is Joe Siegel's on ABC-TV. He hit some of the problems on the head when he said "This guy invented the process. They gave him $70 million to write and direct it. Isn't that like giving Gutenberg money to write all the books?" (

Though the credits say that at least some of the film was doing using Pixar's Renderman.) Not that there aren't breathtaking scenes of wonder as good as I wanted them to be, and some better. (All the while I was watching this I was reminded of Karel Zeman's The Fabulous World of Jules Verne, which we saw earlier but which we'll be reviewing (from your viewpoint) later — it's the same kind of through-visioned total movie, only here the object, unlike with Zeman, was to make it hyper-real and Expressionistic at the same time...) And for what is essentially the vision of 2 guys — the writer/director and his brother — this has the loooooooongest end-credits I've seen in my life — I was staying to find out who did the second rendition of "Over the Rainbow" — no, not the late Hawaiian — and I found out just after the onset and retreat of the glaciers of the next Ice Age...

The main knock on the film, beyond the sheer unbelievably of the last 30 minutes, is that it's a loving homage to its myriad inspirations, but doesn't transcend them in the way that Raiders of the Lost Ark (the most obvious point of comparison) transcended its inspirations. Raiders succeeds in building its own world, rather than seeming an amalgamation of every comic book, Radebaugh illustration, and Republic Serial a boy's heart could desire. In fact, Sky Captain's over-the-top sensibilities work against establishing that underlying reality; save the central Biblical supernaturalism, nothing in Raiders is physically impossible; unlikely, yeah, impossible, no. Counter-intuitively, because Indy's enemies are all human, triumphing over them actually seems a real achievement. By contrast, the forces arrayed against Sky Captain are so formidable (the rocket, the robot, the countdown, etc.) that he's left the realm of human logic and entered that of movie logic, where triumph for the hero is always assured. (Has there ever been a scene with ticking bomb timer at the end of the movie where the hero didn't cut the red wire in time?) Then again, "Hey kid, you ain't no Spielberg yet!" is hardly a devastating critique. W: All that being said: you'll probably enjoy the hell out of this movie. It's a combination of live acting, the totally animated hyper-real, the Expressionistic and the gritty. (Questions of inertia aside — way aside — the air chase through the buildings under construction is 1939 in a nutshell.) The great lines in the movie — there are some — come out of the characters and situation — not because it's time for one, or the actors thought they needed one. The way the film was made points to the future. I wrote about all this in a story called "French Scenes" more than 20 years ago, so it's nice to see it finally happening. (Since CGI came in, it was only a matter of time til someone made a movie with just the principles on an empty soundstage.) No more location shooting; no more losing the light; no more imbalance in the mise-en-scene; NO MORE EXTRAS — unless I'm very mistaken, the scene in the packed Radio City Music Hall has 2 people in it. No more period costumes except for the principle actors. As I said back in '82 — if I were in the Stuntman's Union I'd be learning a new trade, unless it, too, becomes a featherbedding advisory crafts guild. So — he's shown the way to do it, if not having made a film as great as I wanted it to be. ("Pioneers leave ugly towns.") Of course, no one could have made a movie as great as I wanted it to be, unless someone hands me a pile of dough and goes away until I say "It's done..."

We are now in the era where movies can do anything they need to. (This also will open up, unfortunately, very big, very bad comic book movies, courtesy this process.) Sky Captain is better than that — much better — but it still needed another script, one based on about 2/3rd of what's in there now. At least a third of the movie has nothing to do with the main plot. When you're through watching this, you have more questions, but not the right kind. Why the dinosaurs? Why the underwater sequences? Why the levitating robots, which we aren't going to see in 2039, much less 1939? Because we can isn't good enough. What did that part of Totenkopf's experiments have to do with this goal? Etc.

We would have liked this to have been the greatest action-flick ever made, and then some.

With a bold combination of romance, action and adventure, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow captures the spirit of Star Wars and the Indiana Jones movies.

And, as everyone has been saying, it's a visual treat, with lush - if faintly washed-out - computer-generated imagery of retro-futuristic cities, intrepid pilots and bizarre landscapes.

But the sense of wonder the movie generates is also its biggest flaw, and whether that bothers you could determine whether you view the movie as a spectacle or a spectacular failure. Almost every scene in the movie is more fantastic than the one before it, going from one menacing giant robot to a squadron of menacing giant robots, from a single prop-driven jet that can dive underwater to a squadron of them.

I don't want to give away anything more that could sour you on the film, but the end result is less like peeling away the layers of an onion and more like digging into a mutant "pig's trough" at Farrell's #&8211; a cherry atop whip cream drizzled with sprinkles and hot fudge, all on top of real-bean vanilla, fudgy chocolate and luscious mint, with a brownie underneath, with maybe a sliced-up banana and some marshmellows thrown in for kicks.

I truly did think of Star Wars while watching Sky Captain and I couldn't remember whether it all seemed to come together the first time I saw it or whether the same rush of action helped gloss over the rough spots, like how R2-D2 would have been able to steal the Death Star plans during the rescue of Princess Leia if he didn't already have them. Sky Captain may not have the same mythos or box-office pull as Lucas' two Star Wars prequels, but it's certainly a better movie than either The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones.

Sky Captain Starring: Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow

"Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" is supposed to be a Science Fiction and Action movie. What we get instead is just another action movie that tips its hat at the early film noir lighting.

The plot in "Sky Captain" begins to unravel from the start. The entire duration of the film one feels lost because the plot is full of more holes than Swiss cheese. The film seemed like a good idea at first but it just seems to skip all the plot points and leave them by the wayside while the action unfolds.

I would have expected much better from Gwyneth Paltrowas well. She really does not bring much to the table considering she is an Academy Award winning actress. Jude Law, on the other hand, does an excellent job considering what he has to work with.

If anything, Giovanni Ribisi and Angelina Jolieshould get the credit for being the life preserver of this film. They easily shine brighter than anyone in all of their scenes.

This film also lacked any real emotion or feeling for the characters -- it lacks any real depth, literally -- the entire film was shot on a blue screen and then replaced with the animations.

"Sky Captain" is the result of too many big name actors consuming the budget and not allowing for the special effects. Kerry Conran, the writer and director, was attempting to make a "Matrix" scale movie without its budget. He also tried to fit three hours worth of story into an hour and a half, not a good idea when you have a film that could have been an epic homage to a great period of film making.

While there are some jokes and jabs that eventually pan out to be, at the very least, entertaining, "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" pretty much fails on all levels.

 Airplanes that transform into submarines. Giant flying robots. Futuristic technology combined with 1940s style. Toto, we aren't in Kansas anymore.

Almost entirely computer-generated, "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" pays a magnificent tribute to old-Hollywood superhero movies. The story follows Joe "Sky Captain" Sullivan, played by Jude Law, a daring pilot who routinely saves the day, and Polly Perkins, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, an equally zealous news reporter.

When famous scientists mysteriously disappear from all over the world and massive robots invade her New York City home, the ever-curious Polly strives to find out who is behind the strange goings-on. In order to get the story, she decides to team up with her unwilling ex, Joe, in his mission to hunt down the offender.

Polly and Joe roller coaster through adventure after adventure, from battling robots underwater to escaping dynamite-filled abandoned mines in Nepal. Helping them along their rocky path are Joe's mechanical-whiz friend Dex (Giovanni Ribisi), and Commander Franky(Angelina Jolie), the eye-patched leader of a private airforce. Adding comic flavor to the story is the quick, witty banter between Polly and Joe, whose past romance evidently ended on a rocky note(Franky may have played some part in that).

Visually, this movie is nothing short of amazing. The glowing soft-focus imaging and vintage style - check out Polly's Veronica Lake hairdo - are wonderfully different and enhance this fantasy world created by writer/director Kerry Conran. The surprising twist is that the plot keeps right up with the effects, a rare occurrence in science fiction movies.

The actors give good performances, especially considering they had to work in front of a green screen with just a few props on hand. Cars, buildings, landscapes, and everything in between were added later through computer generatio n.

Hurry and go see this movie before the robots get here, it's not to be missed.

 The strikingly unique Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is likely to suffer from muddled audience expectations. Go to the film expecting nothing more than an elaborate, delightfully retro cartoon, and Sky Captain will offer some real pleasures. Demand more, and you will be disappointed.

The PG-rated film (for sequences of stylized sci-fi violence and brief mild language) offers vivid realizations of an imagined world full of elaborate inventions, monstrous robots, prehistoric creatures, and grand adventures. It's a mix of Indiana Jones, The Lost World, and Buck Rogers that's almost completely family-friendly. The qualifying "almost" is due to two mild but incongruously inappropriate scenes-one limited to a lewd remark and the other a bedroom scene that isn't quite what it seems initially.

Sky Captain stakes out the unexplored middle ground between animation and reality. Director Kerry Conran gives every frame a slightly hazy, hand-tinted look that melds the live actors seamlessly with their artificial backdrops, vehicles, and the fanciful creatures they encounter.

Although the effect is initially distracting, one is sucked into the artificial world remarkably fast. The composition is right out of the frames of a comic book, with dramatic angles and backdrops revealing the maximum amount of visual information in each scene.

The plot falls into a similar mold, and this is where the film suffers somewhat. As in a comic book, the audience is required to fill in the gaps in logic, space, and time between each frame, and this rhythm doesn't work as well onscreen as it does on the page.

The story is set in a future imagined by the past. In 1939 Manhattan, intrepid reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) is tracking a lead on a series of missing scientists when huge, airborne robots darken the city skies. Joe Sullivan-Sky Captain-zooms in on his prop-driven fighter plane to save Polly and the city, at least for the time being. Sullivan (Jude Law) must now track these robots to their source and discover the identity of the mysterious Totenkopf, a shadowy figure who may have plans to destroy the earth.

Pure pulp, and that's just the start of it. But this is the stuff that fuels young imaginations, and it's a blast to see it all come to (a sort of) life onscreen in a way that doesn't diminish the material's roots in boyish dreams by forcing it into line with the heightened realism of traditional film

 Wrapped in a sepia-hued gauze, "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" is, frame for frame, perhaps one of the most visually stunning films of the year. Starring actors performing predominantly in front of green screens, "Tomorrow" frames each scene with a hazy glow that is at once retro and futuristic.

Director Kerry Conran deserves praise for his daring leap into originality. So why does everything feel so...familiar?

"Tomorrow" is not short on style. Forget eye candy, this is eye buffet. A thrilling mix of old concepts with modern style, the film creates an entirely realistic realm of 1930s America as dreamed by the science fiction pulp comics of yesteryear.

Each still is so detailed and sumptuous; you could splice up the film, frame it, and place any random shot above the mantle.

From the lurching zeppelin Hindenburg III drifting through the Big Apple near the opening, to the amped-up zing of the aerial (and aquatic) acrobatics throughout the film, "Tomorrow" positively drips style, but ultimately sacrifices substance. And there are not enough pixels on a hard drive to give life to a stale story.

It is unfortunate, for the script was also penned by Conran, who must have spent more time working in Photoshop than Microsoft Word, and is cobbled together from flicks like "The Wizard of Oz," "Metropolis," "King Kong" "The Day the Earth Stood Still" "The Matrix," the "Star Wars" trilogy and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (at least he chose good source material).

To be fair, the film was going for a comic-book feel, which it accomplishes. But it gives no breadth to its characters and saddles the cast with dialogue as creative and witty as that found on a Bazooka Joe gum wrapper.

The film follows gutsy reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow, dolled up to look like Veronica Lake) who may have possibly stumbled upon what might be behind the plague of skyscraping robots that have been terrorizing the city.

She receives help from the strapping Sky Captain (played by Jude Law), who relishes the chance to snake through the city in his sleek PT-40 Tomahawk and blast baddies. Captain, whom Polly calls by his real name, Joe Sullivan, don't go it alone. He is assisted by his buddy Dex (Giovanni Ribisi, putting the kick in "sidekick") and the eye patch-sporting Franky ( played by Angelina Jolie, whose lips rival the zeppelins).

Too often, though, we are left listening to Law and Gwyneth Paltrow squabble and bicker. It is not necessarily the actors' faults, but too many times it feels as though they yell out stage direction as opposed to dialogue.

"We're underwater!" exclaims Polly after their plane makes a thundering crash into the ocean. Thanks for the update, Pol.

And Captain has no emotional subtext for us to root for. He's just a studly do-right who's an ace in the cockpit. Cap'n Crunch had more of a back story than this guy.

What makes "Sky Captain" so frustrating is the greatness it could have accomplished. The film could have been forever etched into the collective memory of the obsessive, cultish sci-fi fanboys (myself included) who have been longing for film with substance to drool over (especially after being taunted and duped by "The Matrix" sequels).

We are invited to go along for a thrilling ride, but someone forgot to fill the tank.

 Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow brings an eccentric form of set design to live action film, animation. While the smooth graphics and budget saving "sets" are gorgeous at first, the effects die off quickly, making the film look more like a videogame cut-scene. Rendering the characters into the film also proved to be a challenge, as viewers will become increasingly annoyed with the slight feathery blur surrounding each of the actors. Computer graphics are nothing new; trying to carry a film based on a dated concept was a grave mistake. Law's presence was convincing in comparison to other performances such as Cold Mountain. The pseudo-British-American accent surprisingly enough doesn't get old, and perhaps is the source of attraction for Ms. Perkins. However, the whole concept of him being the only possible hope of survival for human kind diminishes as the film progresses and his island airfield portrays him as one step above a teenage boy obsessed with toy planes. Entering the world of investigative reporting, Paltrow exudes utter stupidity, making Lois Lane appear classy and intelligent in comparison. She plays the prototypical dumb blonde, always managing to let her curiosity get the best of her. This attribute gets Sky into more trouble than he bargains for, thus making him her baby-sitter. One major downside to the film is the lack of screen time for the beautiful Franky Cook (Angelina Jolie, Tomb Raider). Since the movie possesses a great deal of star power, it is most disappointing that an actress of her caliber was degraded to merely appearing for a whopping five minute cameo. Her character was disgustingly underdeveloped, leaving the viewers with many unanswered questions regarding her past with Sky, or general exposition surrounding her for that matter. Her only entertaining scene came when she miraculously ejects from her planes cockpit, underwater no less, and then flies back to her base, on a jet pack. Her rocket belt, while a little over the top, added a bit of comic relief and a much needed breath of freash air. Villains, ostensibly the basis for the film, are painstakingly never present. The infamous Doctor Totenkoph makes his first appearance, within the final chapter of this circus. But, when he does surface, his character development is skewed by the fact that he appears as a holographic representation, in very Wizard of Oz fashion, by appearing in bolts of lightning. Besides the glorified blue specter, the only other villain, the "Mysterious Woman," has no lines. She merely is there, which translates to laughter of mockery and nothing more. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow proves to be a star struck film that will never live up to the aura of grandiose expectation surrounding it. With all the money saved from production costs by chosing to animate sets, hopefully the director will be able to buy a virtual audience that can appreciate this bombshell.

In the film Jude Law plays a heroic pilot who joins forces with an ace reporter, played by Gwyneth Paltrow , to save the world from giant robots.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow has already topped the US box office.

Among guests expected at the premiere is Jude Law's ex-wife Sadie Frost who co-produced the film.

The pair have remained friends and Jude Law was recently seen at Frost's latest fashion show.

Sky Captain, directed by Kerry Conran, also stars Angelina Jolie and Michael Gambon, who plays the boss of Gwyneth Paltrow reporter character Polly Perkins. Public outing

The film was filmed using blue screen technology - the actors perform in front of a blank screen and the scenery is added later using digital effects.

The London premiere will be Paltrow's first major public UK outing since giving birth to her daughter Apple in May.

Gwyneth Paltrow is currently taking a break from work commitments but is set to make a cameo in the forthcoming movie This Thing Called Love.

For her brief appearance singing as Peggy Lee in the biographical film about Truman Capote she will reportedly be paid £3m.

Walking down the red carpet at the premiere for her new film, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, actress Gwyneth Paltrow said Monday that her most rewarding role is at home.

"I'm spending as much time as possible with Apple, carrying her around, singing to her, all kinds of things," the Oscar-winning actress said of her daughter with husband, Coldplay singer Chris Martin. Paltrow left baby Apple, born in May, long enough to accompany co-star Jude Law to the premiere of the fantasy adventure film in London's Leicester Square.

The pair found themselves acting largely against blue screens with minimal props as they portrayed a reporter and her fighter pilot ex-boyfriend, who tackle a computer-generated robot invasion from outer space.

"At first it was tricky and it was difficult to keep a straight face, then we got used to it," Jude Law said.

Gwyneth Paltrow, who celebrates her 32nd birthday on Tuesday, added: "It's a difficult technique but it was actually fun. You've just got to use your imagination."

The pair also shared their wish list for future inventions.

Gwyneth Paltrow wants "efficient fuel instead of this oil nonsense which harms the planet" and Jude Law craves the "chance to go to space."