10 out of 10
 

Sky Captain and the Charm of Yesterday

From the opening shot of the vast Hindenburg 3 airship arriving at the top of the Empire State Building, you know you are going to experience something totally original and utterly amazing. Not only has the entire world of the 1930's been recreated to utter perfection, but the entire style and special effects of the era have been mimicked precisely, even to the snow falling around the airship as it docks. Cinematographically, arguably, the most beautiful movie of all time, with clothes in the design of an era when great looks were the fahsion and buildings in the the true glory of Art Deco, the brief yet so maligned artistic style that so shaped New York, Sky Captain locks ones eyes onto the screen and never lets go.

As top biological scientists keep disappearing at a high rate of knots, Polly Perkins (Gwneth Paltrow) knows she is onto a big story and the invasion of New York by a fleet of office-block sized robots on a mission to destroy the citiy's generators forces her to team up with Sky Captain Joe Sullivan (Jude Law). With a propeller-driven Mustang, fitted with more gadgets than the average James Bond car and an addiction to Milk of Magnesia, Sullivan is so on a quest that will take him to the most remote parts of Tibet, the South Seas and even as far as the Bronx in pursuit of the mysterious Dr Totenkopf and his lethal sidekick, the woman with no name. Backed by his all-American, gum-chewing techie, Dex (Giovanni Ribisi) and a British Royal Navy Commander (Angelina Jolie), it all adds up to a Sci-Fi adventure that's could have been striaght out of a 1930's comic book that'll give you the ride of your life.

With a cast that seem almost born to play their respective roles in this magnificent computer-generated universe, the film has some ingenious touches, not least that of breathing screen life back into Sir Lawrence Olivier who died long ago as a scientist who has, in the story, died long ago.

If I had to recommend just one film this year, it would undoubtedly be "Sky Captain and the World Of Tomorrow". It's just like "they don't make them any more" - It will not disappoint!.

Jaw-droppingly brilliant!