Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004, Kerry Conran) (f) 40

Seems, at least in the beginning, to answer the age-old question, "What would the love child of Spielberg and Maddin look like?", but Conran doesn't have the narrative dexterity of the former or the formal chops of the latter. Instead, it looks more like a live action Paul Dini cartoon, only with real people weighing everything down. There's no real indication here that Conran has any ability to actually write or direct -- the relationship between Sky and Polly is so perfunctory it almost doesn't even register, and scenes never really build up to anything -- but perhaps the willpower to actually get something like this made is all that matters anymore. I was dreading the blue-screen gimmick (especially after Lucas' foray), but a lot of it is pretty damn seamless (and when it is obvious, it reinforces the old-timey 30s feel), but it ultimately inaugurates a new skill by which to judge actors: whether they can do blue-screen acting. Angelina Jolie and Giovanni Ribisi can; Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow, alas, cannot. (And based on Paltrow's terrible performance -- incapable of convincing us that she's interacting with her environment, she singlehandedly ruins a good scene, the giant robots attacking NYC -- it's possible that Law himself was never in the same room as her.)