Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow

(Herald rating: * * *)

SCATWOT, as we'll call it, has caused some brief excitement for its technique of shooting its actors against a blue screen then adding all the rest of its retro-futurist sci-fi-action adventure afterwards.

Unfortunately, the end result, while dazzling for the first 20 minutes for its design, leaves one cold and a little bored.

It doesn't exactly help that most of its leads might as well be the product of matinee-idol software.

Law plays the Biggles-meets-Indiana-Jones Sky Captain, while Paltrow is the intrepid reporter Polly Perkins who follows his derring-do for stories and follows him for romance.

They squabble as he tries to save the world and she snaps pictures.

Jolie is an eye-patched RAF officer in charge of an airbase - which shows that for all the German expressionism and art deco influences, this film also owes quite a bit to the world of Gerry Anderson's Captain Scarlet and the like. Oh, and there's Laurence Olivier, who doesn't let being dead get in the way of a brief cameo as the evil Totenkopf, the man who has unleashed giant flying robots and other weapons of mass destruction on the world.

The time is a parallel universe of the 1930s, where the planes still have propellers but other technology has advanced a little more.

The tone is the serials of the same time.

They might have helped inspire the entire Indiana Jones series and it's clear that first-time director Conran wants something of a similar ilk.

But here, just where some witty repartee between Law and Paltrow might have warmed up the digitally frigid scenes, the dialogue remains as cold as it is corny.

SCATWOT is a technical marvel and a design wonder. It's just not much of a movie.

CAST: Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie
DIRECTOR: Kerry Conran
RATING: PG (medium-level violence)
RUNNING TIME: 106 mins
SCREENING: Village, Hoyts, Berkeley cinemas