The Fredösphere

We saw Sky Captain in a matinee.  It has been a long time that I have seen a movie that was so completely fake in all the ways that a movie should be.  This movie put me in an alternate world -- a gorgeous alternate world -- in a way reminiscent of, obviously, the first Batman movie, and in quite a different way, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

The opening sequence set the tone.  An airship called the Hindenburg III sails majestically into New York.  They give you a glimpse of the Empire State Building.  At that moment I said to myself, "by golly, they're going to use the mooring mast at the top!"  And they did, with the whole wonderful, goofily impossible business of getting passengers to disembark over a narrow, wind-shaken catwalk 1400 feet above the ground.  Beautiful.  I got my money's worth right there.

When I saw the trailer, I fell in love with the look, but I expected the screen play to be dreadful.  It was merely occasionally bad.  That would be unfortunate if you happen to be that particularly pathetic type of person who cares about character development and, you know, "motivation" and dialog and all that other effete crap.

Like Batman I, this movie's Gotham was more Gotham than the real New York.  In the 30s they had a good thing going, what with the Empire State and the Chrysler and all that.  Then Mies van der Rohe had to come over, and they felt sorry for him because of the Nazis and that whole big sob story that he and Gropius and all those guys gave, and everything just went to pot.  Heartbreaking.

Of the three movies I've mentioned, of course Crouching Tiger is in another league, since it has emotional depth (see also crap, effete).  And I can't quite resist thinking now of the several plot quibbles I have that bother me (as opposed the the tens of thousands which were also there but which I forgave instantly.)  Said quibbles include the whole ending sequence which was not thought through as much as it should have. Also, Sky Captain runs a huge military base on an island, and when it is attacked, his plane is the only one they send up.  Apparently the whole base is nothing but one big support system for Our Hero.  I guess Sky Captain is Tom Swift Jr. for adults.  (Did someone mention Tom Swift Jr.?)  Adults with the emotional maturity of 16-year-olds.