Reviewed by Peter Veugelaers © 2005
- Almost phony baloney

 The saturated digital effects imbued with a dreamy light brown photographic ambiance did not lose its irony: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow centres a story about technological misuse by those whose knowledge of nature is meant to serve the world not enslave it. This movie has nothing on the mad scientist scenarios of Frankenstein and The Invisible Man, however, and recent films such as Hollow Man and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, both which explore playing God and were of average quality, are better than Sky Captain. This is a movie which conventionally dramatises situations that do not work against a facile comic book effect.

 Chronicle journalist Poly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) and a British pilot, Sky Captain (Jude Law) are old flames who for different reasons set out to discover who is behind an invasion of robotic machines on New York City and the mysterious deaths of scientists. The mad scientist is played by a computer resurrected Sir Lawrence Olivier – he died more than a decade ago – who appears in the movie as a facial holograph.

 Set before the events of World War II it contrives a somewhat ludicrous fantasy involving eugenics and impending disaster unrelated to historical fact, thus the World of Tomorrow in the film’s title has futuristic connotations while remaining retrospective. It is self conscious to the extent of inserting a clip of Dorothy setting out for Oz from The Wizard of Oz, refers knowingly to The Invisible Man, and Perkins reassures her editor about the supposed dangers of meeting a source at a movie screening when “it is only a movie”. They all read to underline the obvious fiction of the story.

  If its objective is to throwback to old fashioned values of classical Hollywood, including a reminisce of the diffusion filter used to soften the faces of star actresses, brought up to date for Gwyneth Paltrow, then this does not work as retro cum nostalgia or gripping entertainment.