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Night at the Movies - Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow


Scrivener
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7/10

Boy am I glad this didn't stink. I've had enough bad movies this week to last me through Christmas.

So here's the rundown: It takes a little bit from every adventure movie you've ever seen, throws in a dash in some art nouveau and 40's serial sci-fi, and lots and lots of CG (For the uninitiated - everything but the actors is CG).

What do you get? A good, if not particularly classic, adventure flick fit for folks of all ages. There are tons (I mean TONS) of nod-nod wink-wink references to popular scifi/fantasy/adventures. We've got Star Wars a plenty, a not-so-subtle homage to The Wizard of Oz, Jurassic Park, Terminator, Flash Gordon, Island of Dr. Moreau, Indiana Jones in spades, and so many more that this review could easily look my five-star-movies post. Some might call this a ripoff movie (as some did with Kill Bill) but it's really more of an homage movie. I had quite a lot of fun identifying all the things that were pulled from other movies... the elusive but not-so-subtle Kong references especially had me tickled.

My biggest gripe with the film is Paltrow's Polly character. Ribisi's performance as Dex also rubbed me the wrong way, but Polly is different... and it wasn't the acting... but the character herself. Polly is one of those archetypical 'stupid woman' characters - the kind that just cause nonstop trouble for no real reason. From start to finish I just wanted to slap her. I know that's exactly what they were going for - but then Jar Jar and Donkey were in the same boat - so "we meant to do that" isn't a completely adequate excuse.

Anyhoo, SC is going to give this a 10/10, just you wait and see. It's a very fun movie with all kinds of Where's Waldo games for film buffs like myself - and it's safe for the whole family without being stupid.

It's definately absolute positively worth seeing at least once - but I'm not sure its something I would be terribly excited to have in my DVD collection. The special features could make up for it, I think.

One last thing - throughout the whole movie - I couldn't shake the feeling that somehow it would look better in black and white. Like it was meant to be. Dunno, but that creeping suspicion sort of irked me the whole time.

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Saw this today. LOVED it!!! The cheesy storyline, the acting, the cinematography, sound etc. It was a real tribute to an oldie movie gone modern. Highly entertaining.

9/10

I took off one point because the Polly character should have been killed in the first five minutes.

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Guest Hellbinder[CE]

I just cant beleive that this movie is down to a 72% at Rottentomatoes.

You read through those 38 Negative reviews and they are just Ridiculous. How in the hell could *anyone* go to such an imaginative movie and come away with a negative opinion.

Its just unfreaking believable...

It appears that many people just dont know what a decent movie is anymore.

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quote:


Originally posted by Scrivener:

quote:

Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:

I took off one point because the Polly character should have been killed in the first five minutes.


Now you see that not all of my comments are baseless. So did I call that or what?


Yeah, but the more I think about it, the more I think that it was intentional. Her bungling character is just another tribute to the bumbling fools in movies of yesteryear.
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Guest Hellbinder[CE]

Just got back from it..

The most amazing thing about this movie is just how far they take CGI to the next level. Every single frame in that movie is prerendered. Thats astonishing. Not the grandios specticle Scenes of high flying action. It's the indoor scenes, and office scenes, the normal set scenes are just freaking amazing. wow. They looked totally real for the most part.

This shows you where movies are headed. By 2010 Entire movies will be made this way as a common practice with no one being able to tell the difference. That is cool.

Polly Was irritating to a fault. They took it to far imo.

Also some of the Concepts they did with the "underwater stuff" was just to far fetched. You can have a movie that is fanciful but the basic physics of it must work in the real world.

Polly and Sky capitan would have been Splattered all over the interior of the cockpit just in the first major battle from the G forces. Then they would have been crushed to death by the underwater pressure.. These are just a couple of the problems.

If the Movie had been set on a different planet/world ok.. the laws may somehow be different.

I still found the movie fun and interesting. But not as rewarding as i was expecting.

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Ah, this harkens back to our Hero-LotR discussion. He has a point, SC... but it didn't really bother me on the basis that those kinds of things appeared regularly in the serial comics of the 30s and 40s. The movie is, after all, based on those comics.

Still, I would have enjoyed the movie more in B&W. Add some old film grain or something and it would have REALLY felt like a classic film. But that's just me.

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Guest Hellbinder[CE]

I dont mean the real world exactly.. I mean abide by the laws that seem to govern the basic rules of the created world.

The Laws of physics they use contradict themselves all over the place. For instance.. If you can fly a plane 1,000 feet straight down into the ocean at 500 mph and the wings dont break off, and nobody gets crushed....

Then you should be able to jump off skyscrapers and such without a scratch.

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