Fan Edits 

 

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

This is a review of a "Fan Edit."  Details of the original film, including twists and the ending,  may be revealed. 

One of the first "all-blue screen" films, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a wonder of technology and art design.  An homage to the adventure serials of the 1930s (although its look has more in common with '40s and '50s trading cards and comics), Sky Captain is the story of a heroic "mercenary" pilot and his reporter ex-girlfriend as they attempt to save the world.  In an alternate 1930s, The mysterious Dr. Totenkopf has sent an army of flying robots to attack New York in order to steal generators and recover an unknown item.  When Sky Captain's plucky assistant is kidnapped, Sky Captain (Jude Law) and Perky newswoman Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) board his specially altered plane and follow the clues to the Far East.

With spectacular effects, an incredible fantasy world, and a gee-wiz plot that is almost the definition of childhood imagination, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow had the foundation to be thrilling entertainment for the whole family.  But it doesn't pull it off.  It's not a bad movie.  It certainly looks great.  However it misses what it's aiming for in scene after scene.

The problem is dignity.  It has far too much.  Instead of a playful ride, it's a respectful testimonial to the fantastic tales of seventy-five years ago.  Instead of funny scenes, there are ones that venerate the humor implicit in the form.  I should be laughing or smiling throughout the picture.  Instead I'm simply nodding at the filmmaker's clever references.  Where the story should be zooming along, it respectfully eases its way, making sure the viewer has plenty of time to digest what's on the screen.

Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow personify the problem.  Law is wrong for the part.  He's solemn where he should be roguish.  He's handsome and dedicatedly heroic when what is needed is boyish charm and arrogance.  Thirty years ago the part would have gone to Harrison Ford.  Today, maybe Law's old roommate Ewan McGregor or Brendan Fraser could have pulled it off.  Paltrow isn't wrong by nature, but by execution.  She thinks she's still in Emma.  She's playing a standard screwball comedy ditzy blond and she's doing it with great decorum.  That's wrong in so many ways.  Both actors, and therefore, both characters, lack humor and warmth, and have zero chemistry.

Angelina Jolie is the only one who knows what kind of picture she's in.  As Frankie, commander of a flying aircraft carrier and an old flame of Sky Captain's, She's joyful and silly and over-the-top, making me wish this was  Frankie and the World of Tomorrow.  But it isn't, and no amount of re-editing can change that.

So, what can a fan edit do?  Cutting can do wonders for that respectful pace, but with few deleted scenes to add back, how do you bring out charm that wasn't there to begin with?

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow Remixed

Editor: Jorge.  Runtime: 70 min (-36 min).  2007.

So, repeating myself, the question is: How do you add charm, wit, and chemistry to a movie where they are lacking if all you can do is cut out material?  The answer is: You can't.  Jorge's version is shorter, which is generally a good thing when a film isn't working, but it doesn't make much of a difference here.  The removal of most of Polly's churlish dialog makes her a less annoying character, but doesn't give her the spark she needs.  She's still cold, as is Sky Captain.  Snipping a few bad lines doesn't magically produce snappy banter.  The movie doesn't need scenes to be cut, but to be replaced.  It turns out it doesn't matter if the lead characters are improved if they still end up uninteresting.  Unless they are positively engaging, all that's worth watching is the flashy effects.

Does Jorge's trimming help the film at all?  He does slice out a substantial amount of material that the original editors should have junked:

• Kaji no longer has his dialog fed to him by Spy Captain.  Thank you. 

• Polly no longer has multiple lines that must have been intended to be jokes, but aren't.  Hurrah! 

• Polly no longer falls down every few minutes.  Hurrah again!

• We no longer watch Dex draw every line on the map.  Someone at the studio thought that was a good idea?

Those are all good cuts, but the overall viewing experience gains little.  I might have rated Remixed as a slight improvement (the best that can be done without altering the leads), but he actually cuts too much.  He pulls out thirty-six minutes, where about twenty of that was fat.  Sometimes it's just a second too much here and there.  Cutting most of the destruction of the base is good, but so much is gone that you get no feel for what is going on.  At times the movie takes on a staccato feel.  A few things I missed:

• Sky Captain's original approach to his airfield; it let me see what his life is like, and without it, locations are too vague.

• Shangri-La; if someone enters paradise, I want to see it.

• The newspapers; they are good transitions and contain some of the only gags that work (Godzilla in the Japanese paper).

• Dax's statement that he meant that the only way to find out if it was safe was to throw something; when a major character does something breathtakingly stupid, like Sky Captain does by stepping on the trap, someone in the film should point it out or I'm left doing it myself.

Several of the new cuts create continuity problems.  Now, Polly no longer mentions Totenkopf's name when they are looking at the robots, so why does Dex suddenly say, "Totenkopf, who's he?"  Similarly, I was thrilled to have little of Polly playing with her camera, but it makes Sky Captain's line, "What is it with you and that stupid camera anyway?" peculiar since there had been nothing "with her and that camera."  Finally, the removal of the assassin robot after the mine explosion wasn't clean, with a jolt in the picture and the sound dropping out. The insightful cuts even out with those that shouldn't have been made, leaving me once again with only the visuals to enjoy.

Remixed ends strangely.  The credits are now accompanied by rock dance music.  Since it is of a different era than the one the film is attempting to portray, it ripped me out of that world.  I don't normally hang around for the credits, but I prefer what little of them I see not to force me from cinematic fantasy quite so quickly.  But the post-credits sequence (I won't give it away) did entertain me, so again, it comes out even.

Jorge's attempt was interesting. I approve of some of his changes and disapprove of others, but those turn out to be nitpicks that don't matter.  Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow appears to be a film that fan editing can't help.

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