Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is an interesting movie. It’s interesting in the way it was created and interesting in the visual look of the movie. Unfortunately it’s not interesting in plot or characters or anything that would normally make a good movie. But it is worth seeing. Why?

Kerry Conran used an old Macintosh and some off-the-shelf software to create a six-minute movie of a dirigible docking at the top of the Empire State Building. The short had a Hugh Ferriss look and feel and wowed producer Jon Avnet. Avnet brought Conran and the short to the studio and sold them on the movie. The title is a take off of the Ferriss book, so you know it was an inspiration. Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angela Jolie and Giovanni Ribisi were brought in to star and the movie was filmed.
The movie originally went just as The World of Tomorrow, but the studio thought they could develop it into a series and wanted Sky Captain (the main character) added to the title to help market future films in the series. When the movie made less than half it’s cost at the box office (and not that much overseas), the series idea was quickly dropped. Conran had been scheduled to direct John Carter of Mars, but was dropped in favor of Andrew Stanton (who did a couplemovies that were box office hits).

The movie itself is a confusing mishmash of plots with giant robots attacking places across the globe. Sky Captain (Law) and his ex Polly (Paltrow) work to stop the robots and find out the plot behind them. Commander Franky Cook (Jolie) helps them along the way and the bad guy is played by Sir Laurence Olivier. The dialogue is stilted and the plot doesn’t make much sense. This is truly a movie to watch with the sound off.

But why would you watch a movie with the sound off? Because the scenery and atmosphere is amazing. Giant robots attacking a 1930s era New York with flying cities and dirigibles floating through the air. It’s an amazing achievement in visuals. If they’d only splurged for someone to write a decent plot and dialogue it would be a classic. But I still recommend the movie, but mute it and enjoy the scenery.