Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow (2004)

Old-fashioned adventure never really goes out of style; it just waits for the right dreamer to bring it back. Kerry Conran's "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow," which he wrote and directed as his first feature, broke new ground in digital filmmaking while reviving a nostalgic fantasy world drawn from a host of vintage inspirations. Shot almost entirely in front of blue screens, with nearly every setting created by computer, it's a dazzling treat for anyone who loves the look and feel of golden-age science fiction pulp magazines, borrowing from Howard Hawks adventures, Fritz Lang's "Metropolis," "Buck Rogers," "The Third Man," old movie serials and the "Indiana Jones" films. In 1939 New York, as giant robots attack cities around the globe and famous scientists mysteriously vanish, ace pilot Joe "Sky Captain" Sullivan (Jude Law) and his ex-girlfriend, plucky reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow), must stop a mysterious madman, Dr. Totenkopf, whose vision of the future threatens all humanity. The late Laurence Olivier appears as Totenkopf through digitally reworked archival footage, and Giovanni Ribisi plays Joe's gadget-savvy sidekick. Angelina Jolie turns up in a small but memorable role as a dashing, eye-patched commander of a flying aircraft carrier. But the real star is Conran, whose playful nod to "The Wizard of Oz" is a marvel to behold and whose filmmaking method was revolutionary. It struggled at the box office, but it paved the way for many all-digital productions that followed.