I considered starting my review of this film by talking about the plot, but it just didn't work; Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow is such a visual marvel that any attempt on my part to deal first with the narrative of the film would inevitably result in a capsized bit of writing; little bits of praise for the special effects would seep up through my attempts to deconstruct the pop culture background of the story or the cleverness of the dialogue. Better, I think, to get it all out in one big burst of hyperbole. Something along the lines of: this is one of the most stunning-looking movies you will ever see.

Actually, that's not hyperbole; this look of this film really did blow me away. There's a reason it's the film's selling point, but even so, the trailers don't really do it justice. There are many, many movies worthy of the same accolade, for a variety of different reasons -- from cinematography to special effects to the beautiful people starring in them. Sky Captain, obviously, fits in the special effects category. It takes the technology George Lucas propogated with the two recent Star Wars prequels and turns it into a fully realized art form.

Director Kerry Conran's plan was to create a film that was, aside from the actors, entirely digital, and to do it all by himself. Clearly, the plan changed slightly, but the principal did not. More importantly, the vision that he conceived seems to have remained intact, and thus we're presented with a period piece that takes place in a period that never existed, a lush, 1930s New York City that will have deco fans dripping in their seats, captured in a lush, burnished style that is probably what Technicolor films would look like if the process was still used. Looking at the film and trying to comprehend the fact that none of it is real (aside from the actors, who look completely at home in their environments) is so mind boggling that you have to just give up thinking that way after a while. I remember not five minutes into the movie, seeing the reflection of snow falling in a window and noting that I needed to recall that for this review. And then I saw another detail like that, and another...

Am I making sense? I'm now faced with another conundrum: how to accurately describe the way the film looks. I'll just let this one go; see it for yourself. I will note one surprising detail I learned, which is that the entire film was made in black and white, and then recolored in post production. That kind of detail goes a long way towards explaining why this digital universe is completely convincing, while other have tried similar things in the past with less success. One of the problems with movies made entirely with green screens and computers is that they frequently look video games; this one never stops looking like a film.

Special effects, they say, are pointless without a good story, and the plot here lives up to all that you might imagine from a movie that contains the words World Of Tomorrow in it's title. It is completely innocent form of storytelling -- you know, the kind of movie that's better because it's only rated PG -- and it's blessedly sincere in its intentions. You don't have to be a sci-fi geek to appreciate it, nor do you have to dial down your intelligence; you just need to know what it's like to have an imagination. You'll either gleefully accept that there's a Secret Army For Hire stationed on some island that is apparently connected to New York City by a very long bridge and that it is called upon to fight evil whenever the need arises and that it is apparently made up almost entirely of one man, the titular Sky Captain (nee Joe Sullivan, played by Jude Law), or you don't. If the sight of giant tin can robots that look like they walked off the 2-D world of The Iron Giant and into real life thrills you, this will be your type of film. If it's not, I feel sorry for you.

It's an adventure film that would have been made in the 20s and 30s, when movies played in serial form. In fact, much of it was made in the 20s and 30s: the script was written by Conran, and that it works so well it's not so much a testament to his writing skill as it is to his ability to string together elements from a multitude of sources -- those serials, and also comic books and more famous films like King Kong -- and turn them into a glorious whole.

The story involves an evil scientist, a plucky reporter (that'd be Gwyneth Paltrow), witty banter between old flames, thrilling chases on land and sea, giant robots, fighter squadrons of B-52s, intrigue and wonder, more giant robots, mysterious islands, Angelina Jolie in her first appealing role in years and a small nod to George Lucas. What it does not have is a great, hissable villain, and that is just about the only problem I had with it. Because the film is structured as a mystery, the villain isn't revealed until the end, and so there's none of the sparks that flew between, say, Indiana Jones and Belloq in Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

I should note that the villain, when he finally is revealed, has quite a significant presence; but I'll leave that particular detail for another reviewer to spoil.

I hope moviegoers readily embrace the film; it made me feel incomparably happy, the way great films always do, and I can't help but feel that people owe it to themselves to put away their irony for once and have the grand old time at the movies that this film can provide. Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow is a near masterpiece of tone, and a complete masterpiece of content. Technical bars have been raised, and I think a few dreams might have come true in the process. I, for one, know that the images of those giant robots crashing through the streets of Manhattan as snow falls around them is the kind of thing I've long imagined, but that I never guessed would look as amazing as it does here.

And that, as the title cards say, is The End.