Having seen the Japanese blue-screen picture. Casshern, first, it would perhaps then be disappointing to watching something like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow knowing that it probably had more than ten times the budget of the Japanese film, but delivers ten times less the impact.

Casshern isn’t a particular favourite of mine, however, it does manage to do a lot of things correctly. For one thing, Asia knows how to milk their budget to the very last drop and you only have to look at examples such as Taegukgi and Save the Green Planet as perfect examples of films that demonstrate you don’t need $100 million to make good entertainment.

Both Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Casshern began and ended development almost around the same time. There’s still some debate as to which was finished first, as both were pretty much filmed with sets and blue-screen technology; a first for films. In terms of aesthetics (which is perhaps the biggest draw) Casshern wins hands down, managing to look beautiful and intelligently using CGI mixed with live action to create some spectacular scenes.

By comparison, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow looks archaic and incredibly basic. From the robotic models, to the environments; it’s all rather dull and lifeless. Western audiences have been cheated in what is actually capable with the technology, whereas Far Eastern audiences were given every ounce of eye candy they desired. It wouldn’t surprise me if most of the budget was spent on the three central egos of Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie.

The other visual complain is, why the heck is it so dark? I understand the homage to comic books and a throwback to 50s B-movies, but that doesn’t mean you revert back to minimal lighting. It makes many scenes quite difficult to see without actually increasing the brightness or contrast. The subtitles which are used briefly are so small, you’ll probably need a microscope to read them.

It’s all done purposely of course, to demonstrate and unnecessary film noir-esque atmosphere. The colours also look faded, but this is mainly due to a yellow hue that is used to diffuse most of the colour, almost washing it out and leaving in a few palettes of shades; it’s not quite black & white and not quite colour. It’s a nice effect, but in all honesty it doesn’t work well in this film.

In terms of plot, I guess it’s pretty safe territory and standard fair. Squarely aimed at children, the film revolves around a slight fantasy of the events after World War 1, where a research scientist decides to steal the world’s resources by using large robots. Gwyneth Paltrow becomes involved in the story as a journalist with a penchant for sticking her nose in where it’s not wanted.

Jude Law plays the Sky Captain; a hero for the age who flies a souped-up aeroplane to take out the bad guys. Jolie plays a British captain of a fleet that floats in the sky, and assists the Captain in his efforts to stop the scientist from destroying the world in one of those familiar mad scientist stories.

For myself, I found the film incredibly dull, but fortunately my kid brother did enjoy it, so it wasn’t a total waste of time. What bothered me was the fact that at two hours long it was just bland and uninteresting. The only thing that kept me interested was the hope that they would use more imagination later on, and that Paltrow was looking rather freakish (do think it was in the contract to focus repeatedly on her golden locks of hair?), almost like a Barbie doll.

I sometimes wondered if she wasn’t computer generated. Sadly the film lacks any new ideas, or any real imagination that hasn’t been done before. It may have managed to reach the targeted audience, but it doesn’t mean they couldn’t have made a real effort to make it look spectacular. It felt very reminiscent of FMV in games from 1992 and onward; ultra glossy, mannequin looking and lacking any quality.

Admittedly both Casshern and Sky Captain are aimed at two different distinct markets. Casrhern is aimed at the teen/adult market and also contains a slightly contrived plot, but one that engages and makes you think a just that little bit more than normal for a standard action flick. It’s visually astounding and beautifully done. Sky Captain is simple, bland and basic visually and plot wise sticks to something rather formulaic so as not to confuse the dumb little children who watch the film and get bored; kids who are probably brought up on rubbish on TV and mediocre films. I think it’s wrong for the film makers to give the audience something rather average, and assume that this is good enough. But the film has been a success, so I guess mediocrity and average films are what we’re used to and will get en masse.

Performances were good all round, however. Paltrow with her pout, and insistent need to be everywhere and to manipulate situations as a reporter would, was well done. She irritated the hell out of me, and her man like run wasn’t something to admire. Jude Law was rather drab by contrast, showing all the emotion of a sedated rodent. He seemed to run with a single expression through the film, and demonstrates no charisma whatsoever. Jolie was hilarious as a Brit, her accent sound incredibly forced, and that eye patch simply made her better looking. She doesn’t get to do much, although that’s probably a good thing. The rest of the support cast seemed to have more fun making the film than the main three, which is rather ironic.

Having been produced by Sadie Frost (Jude Law’s ex-wife) probably had nothing to do with how the film turned out. There on set friendship was apparently rather civil; but the film seems rather cold, perhaps similar to how their relationship ended up. It’s probably an unfair comparison, but to be fair, two films were made in the same way, one with a much lesser budget and no big name stars; what does that say about the quality of Western production?

Verdict: Great for children and those with low expectations of entertainment