OxfordPress.com

Grade: B

Verdict: New technology takes the old Saturday-matinee serial to new heights.

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
Cox News Service

There's not a single cynical wink in the entire 107 minutes of the hugely imaginative and immaculately crafted "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow."

A throwback to less ironic times in Hollywood -- say, the early '80s -- as well as to the hallowed Saturday-matinee serials of the '30s and early '40s, this movie would make Flash Gordon and Indiana Jones proud.

That said, "Sky Captain" is as perplexing as it is at times wonderful. Who is this movie for? It's rated PG (parents, please take note), but it's sprinkled with erudite references to "King Kong's" Skull Island, "Raiders of the Lost Ark's" melting faces, "Dr. Cyclops'" menagerie of miniature animals and "Metropolis'" female robot.

At the same time, it's refreshingly free of claustrophobic geek-love for movie minutiae or Tarantino-ish smugness. Here's a picture that's absolutely heartfelt and full of the gee-whiz power movies used to possess.

"Sky Captain" opens with a marvelous sepia-tinted vision of Manhattan, circa 1939, as the Hindenburg III serenely docks at the Empire State Building. Down below, plucky girl reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) is on the trail of a big story. Seven of the world's top scientists have disappeared, and a mysterious meeting at Radio City Music Hall may provide some answers.

However, the minute she steps outside the theater, an army of giant art-deco-styled robots attack the city. Camera clicking, Polly is almost trampled, but then rescued — cliffhanger style — by dashing Joe Sullivan (Jude Law), more commonly known as Sky Captain, leader of an elite band of mercenaries who specialize in saving the world.

That's just the beginning of an action-packed and perilous adventure that will take these former lovers from the snowy heights of Nepal to a hidden tropical island populated by fantastic creatures. Their quarry is the evil mad genius Dr. Totenkopf (the young Laurence Olivier in what might be called a back-from-the-dead cameo), who's the key to the missing scientists .Ê.Ê. and much more.

"Sky Captain" is Kerry Conran's first feature and it has the exhilaration of a personal vision dying to get on screen. The technology is a little difficult to explain, but, basically, Conran has managed to make a $40 million movie look like a $200 million one. Law and Paltrow — along with expert supporting players such as Angelina Jolie, in tight leather and eyepatch, and Giovanni Ribisi, who's half Batman's Robin and half Bonds' Q — were asked to act with minimal props against a blue screen. Then Conran and his production team computer-painted in everything else. Everything.

Conran may be changing the way Hollywood makes effects-heavy movies, but, to his credit, he also cares about his story and characters. Unfortunately, while he may appreciate that Lawrence Kasdan's script had every bit as much to do with the success of "Raiders" as Steven Spielberg's lickety-split direction, he can't quite match it. At least, not for the entire film.

Law and Paltrow are certainly appealing, with their snappy dialogue and film noir trench coats. But there's more romance and resonance in a single exchange from Kasdan's screenplay for "The Empire Strikes Back" — Leia: "I love you;" Han: "I know" — than in the whole of "Sky Captain."

So this grandly imagined movie exists in a kind of limbo — good enough to deserve an appreciative audience, different enough where it might not.

And it's a good sign that Conran has the right priorities: No matter how awe-inspiring the visuals, what puts the movie over are its thrills and ardent heart. About every 10 minutes, he serves up a heart-pounding cliffhanger that all but screams, "To be continued .Ê.Ê."