Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (PG)
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Okay. This movie is going for a particular look and feel, that of old 1930's style pulps and movie serials (it's set in an alternative version of 1939). I think it achieves it pretty well, but then again, I'm not real familiar with the genre, even though I quite like the genre, or at least the idea of it. Of course, the characters aren't tremendously well fleshed out, but I think the story totally calls for sort of cliched characters, to fit the theme, and the characters do fit that theme, in my inexpert opinion.

One of these characters is Sky Captain, aka Joe Sullivan (Jude Law), who flies a fighter plane and is the leader of an army for hire, though we don't meet anyone in his group other than Dex (Giovanni Ribisi). We see his base and there are plenty of people around, but they're not important to the story. Another major character is Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow), a plucky reporter with whom Joe shares a somewhat strained history, and who is looking into the matter of the disappearance of six scientists, when suddenly giant robots attack New York City, after she's been contacted by a scientist named Dr. Walter Jennings, who claims (correctly) that he will be the next scientist targeted by whoever is responsible for these disapperances (and, as it turns out, the robot attack).

The person responsible is Dr. Totenkopf ("played" by digitally manipulated archival footage of Laurence Olivier, who died like fifteen years before this movie came out). Little is known of Totenkopf, except that he was the head of a secret project during WWI, called Unit 11, and the missing scientists were also involved. Joe and Polly end up investigating the matter together. Dex is another important character, apparently the head tech guy in Sky Captain's team (he invented a sort of laser gun, and tracks the signal that's controlling the robots, and so forth). He also gets kidnapped by an assassin who works for Totenkopf, which makes Joe more determined than ever to find the villain, and rescue his friend, and put a stop to the whole nefarious (doomsday) plot.

So, Joe and Polly end up flying to Nepal, and stop briefly in the mythical Shangri-La. They also get some help from an old friend of Joe's, Franky Cook (Angelina Jolie). Um... well, I don't want to give too much away. It's a pretty decent movie. And I enjoyed the running gag about Polly not wanting to waste the couple of shots she has left on her camera. That's all I want to say. But there's plenty of cool action and humor, and whatnot....