SkyCaptain and the World of Tomorrow

A reporter, Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow), has received a secret call telling her to meet an informant at the theatre. He claims to have information concerning the disappearances of several scientists. He also fears he is next. The only other piece of information Poly can get out of him is a name: Totenkopf. Before he will say anything else the city is attacked by a fleet of giant robots. While Polly dashes into the middle of it trying to get a good picture the city calls for the help of the Sky Captain. And he comes...by himself in his plane to fight the robots. They see each other and immediately recognize each other.

So the Sky Captain aka Joe (Jude Law) fights them off and return to base. There his friend and techno geek Dex (Giovanni Ribisi) studies one of the robots that Joe brought down. As he enters his office he finds Polly. They have a delightful chat where he accuses her of sabotaging his plane - he spent six months in a detention camp because of it - and she accuses him of having an affair. They both deny the accusations and he wants her escorted out but she flashed some blueprints that fell out of her informant's pocket.

Joe and Polly go find the doctor, but he's dead. Before he dies he hands Polly two vials that Totenkopf needs. If he gets them the countdown will begin. Sounds ominous. Polly 'forgets' to tell Joe and they rush back to the base, because it's being attacked by flying robots. Dex found a way to track them but before he can relay the information, he gets kidnapped.  Joe returns to the base again and finds a scrap of a map where Dex followed the signal to. Going there they find an abandoned mine of uranium. After almost dying and losing the vials to Totenkopf's henchmen they discover a survivor of Totenkopf's experiments. He shows them how to find his island and they're off. On the way the find Franky (Angelina Jolie) the women Joe had the affair with. She helps them on their way and they got on his island. There they discover Dex and the rest of the missing scientists. They also see that Totenkopf is building a huge spaceship that is also an ark to another world. After it takes off it will destroy the planet. Somehow they manage to stop the planet from blowing up and save all the animals in the ark.

Man, I hated this movie. The plot made no sense, the special effects or whatever they were doing so that everything looked computer generated including the people got annoying really fast. They acting was okay and the characters where amusing, but what was about it.  I couldn't even tell what year it was supposed to be in. In between the two world wars? After them? In the forties? Fifties? Twenties? I had no bloody idea. They said that Totenkopf disappeared before WWI and no one's heard of him for forty years. So that would put them in the forties sometime. I'm guessing after WWII. But they were watching  The Wizard of Oz which was released in 1939. So before WWII? See?

Also why would they kidnap Dex? Because he was getting to close? There's another solution; it's called shooting him in the head. After he was finished with them, why would Totenkopf leave all the scientists alive? That's just asking for trouble. And why wouldn't the animals he created be on the ark? He hated this world. Thought it was rotten with corruption so why not build a new world with you're own animals?

I don't get Totenkopf at all. He was supposed to be this genius scientist and yet he thinks he can build a new world with just two of every animal. Dude, you ain't Noah and this ain't the Bible. Does the word 'inbreeding' mean anything to anyone? And, besides, how was he supposed to know where the ark would land? What if he destroyed another echo system to rebuild Earth? Or what if the ark landed on a planet that couldn't sustain life? Or the people and animals couldn't adapt to the new environment? Did we think of that Mr. Smarty Pants Scientist? I don't think so.

Then, this is where it gets really dumb, he figures out what he's doing is wrong so he does the smart thing and pulls the plug on the entire thing right? Nope, he shoots himself in the head. What? Where's the sense in that? If you know it's wrong then put a stop to it. Don't just go oh well *bang*.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if the villain doesn't hold up then the entire story is crap.

Grade: 4.5/10