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So I watched the movie “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” the other day, not necessarily intending to watch that movie in particular, but just wanting to watch a movie in general.  However, when I saw it listed on Netflix, I realized that I had thought about watching it before.  I had wanted to see it when it first came out, but I heard shortly after it came out that it was pretty much a flop.  Still, I was curious to see what it was about.

To start off with, I just have to say that my expectations were quite off.  I really enjoyed “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow,” even though it is relatively unknown and definitely its own kind of movie.  The movie is set up as a sort of retro-futuristic spy movie, complete with gadgets, giant robots, and gallantry.  The movie, while only a few years old, was produced as if it were made in the thirties, forties, or fifties, predicting the state of the world several decades into the future of that era.  As such, digital technology is nonexistent for the most part, and all of the gadgets, while advanced in concept, are still based on older concepts such as propellers on planes and ancient radio sets.  The production, also, is in the same style of years ago, using “bad” compositing techniques, somewhat gaudy traditional transitions, and messy “film” grain and damage.  But I am convinced that most, if not all, of these missteps were intentional to support the notion that this movie was really made in the forties.  Regardless of this stylistic practice, the one shortfall that I noticed most was that the acting was genuinely sub-par in execution.  But that did not subtract from the movie enough to be a huge issue.

Perhaps my favorite part of the movie was the development and insight put into the creation of the characters, gadgets, and environments.  Many of the concepts of the various environments are extremely nontraditional, lending a definite creative streak to the production.  For instance, who says that airbases were necessarily designed to support air raids?  Why not have these be the bases for naval operations?  Is this confusing enough?  Well, I am not quite sure how it was pulled off, but this discrepancy was easily handled by the storyline.

I would highly recommend “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” as a fun movie to watch.  I realize that most people will not appreciate it as much as I do, but I do believe that it is at least an interesting movie that was skillfully crafted.  I do agree that it is definitely not the “greatest movie ever made,” but I still really enjoyed the movie as a whole, especially the unique setup of many of the key concepts.