So Soft - Go On Give Your Eyes a Rest. (Sky Captain & World Of Tomorrow (DVD))

Member Name: katygriff

Product:	Sky Captain & World Of Tomorrow (DVD)
Date:	19/11/06 (127 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Entertaining, Way it is Shot.

Disadvantages: Long, Characters, Features.

It came to Tuesday just gone and we hosted our weekly film night at our house and I had chosen some great easy going films that we could watch as I was so fed up of watching Steven Seagal films and then any film which shows people getting maimed and killed (there are only three of us girls and a load of lads so they always seem to get the choice). Anyway they dismissed my lovely choices and chose this film, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I couldn’t be bothered to watch a film anyway but I gave it my best shot and after watching it I am still not sure about it even though I have now seen it twice. Here is why.

Oh and I am reviewing the single disc DVD.

-----

The Film:

Joe is known as the Sky Captain mainly because he is fantastic at flying planes. Set in a completely different time zone which seems in the past but also in the future (it does mane sense when you watch the film) the world is shocked with deaths of mad but genius scientists and then a robot attack provokes a kind of war between humans and the cause of the robots.

Joe makes it his mission to find what is causing these attacks and to stop them. Polly Perkins is a reporter who will stop at nothing to actually get a top story. Armed with her camera she decides to tail Joe in whatever he is doing which does lightly annoy him. So off they go in a story with robots, captains, high action and a very confusing at times storyline.


Verdict on the Story:

I did the bad thing with this film and watched it purely because I liked the way it was filmed and did not actually read what it was about at all. The story itself is very confusing and you do spend most of the film following it but purely wondering where it is going. As it goes on you also form more and more questions in your mind which gets annoying at times and they don’t really get answered until the end.

The thing with this story is that it is cleverly thought out and I actually do like the concept and how they played it out on screen as it meant you actually had to pay attention to the film. With all our friends round they were talking all the way through it and nobody ended up enjoying it but nobody understood it. I only understood it because I had seen it before. It is one of those you have to give over your attention to and if you are not willing to do that then honestly do not even bother with it as you will hate it.

-----

Cast and Characters:

Joe – Jude Law
Polly – Gwyneth Paltrow
Franky – Angelina Jolie
Dex – Giovanni Ribisi

Cast wise the film is excellent with Jude and Gwyneth leading the film. The two of them together actually do make a pretty good team and I enjoyed watching them together. Then throw Angelina Jolie into the mix and you have an A list film. The rest of the cast is equally impressive with all great actors playing the roles and not one ounce of bad acting throughout which I always love.

Character wise and I am not so impressed as most of the characters just have no depth to them which makes them unbelievable and extremely annoying in my eyes. The worst to come off is Polly who is so annoying throughout the film as she doesn’t do anything or contribute to the script in any way at all. Then all of the minor characters are not really great as they don’t contribute much to the script at all.

My biggest disappointment is the character of Joe as you don’t really get to know anything about him and the way he goes on in the film it is hard to even care what happens to him. I think they have played so much when they advertised on having a great cast and they have forgotten that the characters need to be great too.

-----

Things to Know:

Runtime – 106 minutes
Price - £5.97 from Amazon
1 or 2 disc DVD
Certificate – PG

-----

Special Features:

I have only actually got the single disc edition of the DVD which does not have any special features on it at all. My friend who has got the two disc edition says that there are a couple of commentaries, features and a gag reel to be seen and for the extra £1 it will cost you if you get it from Amazon it might be worth getting and having a look.

-----

Effects:

This film actually does warrant its own section in this review about its effects as they are some of the most stunning I have seen in quite a long time. I know that effects are quite standard now but the way this film has been shot is amazing. It is shot as a kind of sepia colour and the screen is so soft to look at it makes the film much nicer to watch and more interesting.

Then the effects in the film are superb and I think coupled with the actual way it is filmed it makes it so much nicer to watch. There are so many effects in this film and the reason I am mentioning them so much is that there are just no flaws. I mean I may be wrong but I could not see any bad effects and everything just looked so real which I know is the idea but sometimes things look a little fake but these were just wonderful.

-----

Verdict:

This film is a lot of fun and I cannot fault it for that as the story is enjoyable, the characters are stupid but still watchable and then there are enough special effects to keep most people entertained I should imagine. The way it is shot is excellent and I really admire the makers for trying to do something a little different to the rest as they have successfully achieved this. The problem does come with the fact that they have not thought about making the characters likeable which does have an extreme negative effect on how you view and feel about the film.

The whole film has a very old detective feel about it and it is wonderful in that respect. While you are watching it you can almost imagine you are looking at a comic strip as it has that feel especially because the story is what you expect from comics too. I love the way it looks and the story plays out as it is a bit unusual.

My complaints do mainly lie with the characters as they really needed to develop them a lot more than they did. Polly is so annoying as all she does in the film is fall over which actually does become entertaining at times and Joe is just rubbish so considering he is the main character it does not bode well for the film. A couple of other complaints are just that the film goes on for way too long which you do notice while watching and then the fact that there are no special features on this kind of film is just annoying.

In conclusion I am going to give this DVD two stars. The film itself is enjoyable but not fantastic and the one thing that does save it is the fantastic special effects and the strange sepia old style detective look the film has as that is excellent. With the film being too long though and the character of Polly being a bit rubbish and then the fact that there are no features is a bit bad especially for a film which looks like it could have quite a few. In my opinion fork out the tiny bit extra to get the two disc edition but although the film looks impressive it is not actually that great.

Thanks for reading.

xxx

Summary: Still Enjoyed it Sort of.