Technology Rules in 'World of Tomorrow'

New York's Not Real, but the Ray Gun Is

With all of his new toys in place, Conran took a doctrinaire approach to what could actually be brought onto the set and what couldn't, The Washington Post explains: "Conran and crew also had a rule: The only things real in the film are the actors, their costumes and any object they physically touched. So Law would hold a glass of Milk of Magnesia or a ray gun, and that prop would be real, but the room he was in would be created on the computer."

Not enough minutiae for you? True geeks will appreciate this breakdown of the film's cutting-edge technology from Film and Video Magazine: "Back in L.A. at [effects company WOT's] offices, [editor Erik Jessen] digitized the tapes sent over from the London shoot using a Sony HDW-F500 deck and AJA's Kona HD capture card -- which was, when the production started using it, the only HD capture solution that worked under OS X, according to Jessen. In fact, the Kona card was so new that, in order to get hold of it, WOT became a beta user for several months. 'And it worked beautifully,' Jessen reports.

"'The speed of being able to acquire the digital format using Kona was pretty impressive,' [Jessen] continues. Speed was important because the 2D compositing team had to key out the blue screens in every shot in the movie featuring live actors. 'If we'd shot on film and done all the effects on film it would have been so expensive and time consuming, as we would have had to scan all the footage. But by using the HD Kona card, we could bring all the footage directly into our workflow and right into the computer and onto our server. So we could create a low-res version of all the footage and then use that in our offline cut.'"
• The Washington Post: The Cyberspace Moviemaker (Registration required)
• Film and Video Magazine: Getting Sky Captain Off the Ground

Reality Bytes

Reaction to the film as a whole has been mixed, but everyone seems to agree that it looks spectacular. "At least in terms of style, 'Sky Captain' works brilliantly. Gorgeous in a way few genre films have ever been, the film provides a refreshing antidote to the gleaming, shadowy dystopias that have dominated sci-fi since 'Blade Runner,'" Wired writes in its review.
• Wired: 'Sky Captain' Barely Stays Aloft

For a sneak peek, you can check out the film's official site which hosts a bunch of trailers, as well as concept art and audio of a smug-sounding Conran discussing his technological masterpiece.

IGN has a nice behind-the-scenes video, which has some good shots of the actors working against a blue-screened set before being submerged in all-CGI surroundings.

So, Is It Any Good?

If you haven't already guessed from headlines like "A Virtual Bomb," the question of whether all this techno-wizardry actually adds up to a decent movie is the subject of some debate in reviewerland.

The Philadelphia Inquirer's Steven Rea doesn't seem concerned that the plot (about saving the world from the sadistic plans of an evil genius…no, seriously) doesn't till new ground: "The film's save-the-world scenario may be the stuff of crusty cliff-hangers, its imagery may be borrowed, and its jaunty dialogue anything but deep, but there's something exhilarating going on here. It's darn sublime."

The Christian Science Monitor's David Sterritt is considerably less kind: "It's a sci-fi movie, an action movie, a war movie, a reporter movie, a Nazi movie, and a bogus National Geographic special rolled into one pointless, unexciting package…'Sky Captain' is crass and soulless."

Ouch.

Still, most reviews seem to take more of a middle road, putting the film in the "pretty, but flawed," category. "As the film progresses, that concept starts to feel less organic and more like a gimmick," writes the Hollywood Reporter's Sheri Linden. "But the best sections of 'Sky Captain' have real cinematic power, and while the integration of live action and CGI isn't always convincing, more often than not it's seamless. Working against blue screens, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law and Angelina Jolie strike a confident balance between action-adventure archetypes and vulnerable romantics."

For a good rundown of opinions on the film, check out Metacritic.com, which scores the movie based on more than a dozen reviews.
• The Philadelphia Enquirer: A CGI-Brilliant Ode to the Old
• The Christian Science Monitor: Computerized Flight of Fancy
• The Hollywood Reporter: Review: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Cindy Webb is off for a few days. She will return next week. Comments about this column can be sent here.

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