Review of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (Widescreen Special Collector's Edition)

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a mouthful of title and the film itself is an eyeful of spectacle. Shot (almost?) entirely with digital backgrounds behind its live actors, Sky Captain casts all reality aside and instead makes imagination and nostalgia its playground. Parts comic book, film noir, Star Wars, Duck Tales episode, and search for Dr. Livingston, Sky Captain is an adventure of unabashadly joyful proportions that at times flirts with utterly fantastic without ever quite getting there. (If I'm truthful, a good deal of its energy does run out before the landing strip comes into sight). The cynic in me finds plenty of other problems in this film, but a wistfully generous viewing should find much to enjoy and marvel at here. Seeing this for the very first time (In terms of boxoffice performance I strongly suspect its PG rating hurt this film more than ANYTHING else) I went into this film without a lot of expectation one way or the other, knowing only with a fair amount of confidence that this isn't typically my type of film. That said, I still found myself hooked early on. If you are like me and like liking movies, I suggest you put your suspension of disbelief in auto-pilot and just sit back and enjoy the ride. This one really will reward you for it most of the way through.