This filmed mix the elements of all of those old Saturday afternoon serials and matinees…there was sci-fi with robots and ray guns…adventures with fighter planes…a ultra cool hero and a damsel in distress, well sort of…but overall, Sky Captain made me feel 12 years old again…back when I thought Star Wars was the coolest thing ever…who am I kidding, I still do…but you get my meaning…this film took every cool thing you can imagine as a kid and threw it on the screen.

To me, this film was about imagination…it’s look and feel is stolen right out of the head of a child…a kid who thinks the coolest thing ever would be a fighter jet that can also dive underneath the water and still kick ass!...its about putting killer robots on the screen…its about Dinosaurs and weird creatures…its about the cool hero and his hot chick…its about the nifty sidekick who bales your hero’s ass out…its about evil scientists and their plot to take over the world…this movie is all that then some…

Essentially, Sky Captain IS the movie every kid who has ever played Cowboy’s and Indians or pretended they were a brave solider in war, imagines in their head during school every day…this movie is that perfect kind of tribute to all those kids out there now and to the kid in every one of us…it’s the movie that every filmmaker during the 1930’s wishes they could have made but didn’t have the means…technology and computers makes it all possible…and the work done on this picture is amazing in terms effects and blue screen work.

Were many people will find faults with the story, I find it to be part of the endearing quality of the picture…sure, its weak with no character development and riddled with cliché after cliché…but that was kind of the point, wasn’t it?...if this movie was to truly be a flashback to the past, then don’t we need the silliness and often absurdness of old action/adventure flicks?...to have our hero’s plod their way through a mystery to find the answer to the saving the entire world is often the most simplistic, odd and often ridiculous of solutions, we need that and get it here…where heroes are often put into deadly situations that are blatantly escapable when all the bad guys had to do was shot them with their guns…classic stuff.

The story also pays homage to the many films from the time period it was set as well as current movies…themes can be seen from such movies as Flash Gordon, the Wizard of Oz, King Kong, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, just about any old western or pirate movie as well as a good old fashioned war movie with lots and lots of fighter planes…you can see where theses movies may serve as inspiration for Sky Captain or where the film begs to be included with these classics.

The acting in the film is on target…its obvious right from the start that our main characters are playing to the stereotyped roles presented them…and for the most part, they do it very well…I thought Gwyneth Paltrow’s Polly Perkins was classic…perfect blend of old school damsel in distress and savvy, independent, sometimes bitchy, always go-get ‘um attitude and never, ever having a hair out of place no matter the situation type of character…Giovanni Ribisi is perfect as side kick Rex…hits it out of the park…I wasn’t enamored with Jude Law’s Joe…as the hero, I wanted something more out of him…more heart, more feeling…but for, me there was something missing from his performance…and Angelina Jolie’s role is so small, it would seem a waste had she not kicked ass every second she was on screen.

Overall, Sky Captain is a very good movie…a great way to remember what is was like to be a kid…what it was like to imagine the best action scenes you can think off…that’s what this movie did for me…it reminded me of a simpler time, where movies where just sometimes fun…nothing more, nothing less.