Stage direction/line reading of the month: From Deer Play, by Mary Louise Wilson. MADGE is emotionally invested way too deeply in her flower garden, which has just been munched by the local deer population. Wilson ratchets up MADGE's comic grief, and at the top of the build, we read:

posted: 5:09:35 PM  

I don't think anyone expected a witty script or interesting characterization from Kerry Conran's digital/live action hybrid Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and the film meets those expectations.

There's much to enjoy in the movie, especially in the early scenes of an alternate-universe New York where zeppelins dock at the Empire State Building and Radio City is signed in white lights, not red. Snow falls luminously, a newspaper headline fills the impossibly huge windows behind reporter Polly Perkins' (Gwyneth Paltrow's) desk. Conran lights his actors with key lights that pick out their eyes and soften their features; in their digital realm, their bodies glow.

The film is a bundle of references and direct quotations from The Wizard of Oz, King Kong, the Star Wars franchise, the Indiana Jones films, The Island of Dr. Moreau—and perhaps an obligatory nod to THX 1138. Warrior robots look and sound like those from Byron Haskin's The War of the Worlds. Maybe the cleverest allusion is the recreation of RKO's globe-spanning radio tower logo.

The story and dialogue, however, leave us feeling that, well, it's not as bad as Jar Jar. High-stakes Macguffins are chased across the world, but once found, lose their plot importance. Angelina Jolie, as the captain of a flying airstrip, is left to bark "Alert the amphibious squadron!" as if she were declaiming Shakespeare.

There is an inconsistency to the characterization of Polly. Early on, she is no-nonsense and resourceful, using a rock to break into a scientist's office while Jude Law's Joe Sullivan plans a more complicated rig. But Polly spends the last third of the picture tagging after Joe, doing naught but dithering about how to use the last two shots in her rangefinder camera (which is inexplicably equipped with a flash unit). And, as Leta points out, no matter where she goes, she is made up with the most amazing, long-lasting, plum-colored lipstick.

The movie's hero theme evokes, oddly, "Small World" from Gypsy. Maybe it's just me.

The digital images are phenomenal, no doubt. But the closing sequence reveals that a realistic rendition of an ocean splashdown is still beyond the state of the art.

posted: 5:00:51 PM