DVD | Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

I wasn’t expecting much from this movie and I still ended up being disappointed. But it was for different reasons that I expected.

Knowing that the entire movie was done on blue screens with no real sets – just like the hideous Episodes 1 & 2 of Star Wars – was for me what was going to let the whole movie down. I figured that after George Lucas tried unsuccessfully to do an ultra-realistic movie this way, and failed, Sky Captain would suffer the same fate.

In this I was dead wrong. Instead of trying to make the movie ultra-realistic, the soft focus, tonal range and colouring of this movie all lend itself to more of an animated feel than a live action movie. From just a visual perspective this movie is awesome.

So what lets it down? I was expecting a superhero type action adventure movie, with huge battle scenes that would blow me out of my seat. Instead what I got was a very cool looking, but slow paced drama. Hell, The Incredibles was more an action movie than this was.

But maybe it was just my expectations that ruined the movie for me. If I knew it was going to be a period drama (albeit a fantasy period drama) then I may have been pleasantly surprised. So who’s to blame for my miss-choice of movie type? Did I not investigate the movie enough before ordering, or was the movie wrongfully promoted as an action flick?

Hhhmmm, let me see…. “innovative… special effects that will thrill you and amaze you right through to the action-packed finale.”

I guess they just figured that angling it as an action movie would sell it better than a drama…