welllll
Ok, better than suck. Pretty good, actually. But not amazing. I don't know where that critic was getting "If you don't like Sky Captain than you don't like movies" line. Perhaps he's on Paramount's payroll. It's good, but hardly of that caliber.
THe visuals, pretty good, though at times incomplete. I agree with the assessment that the characters don't always interact with it realistically. Particularly in Nepal. They look like they're running through a studio set. Which is what the actors are doing, but it's hardly convincing that the characters are supposed to be in a snowy wasteland.
And I'm glad you all liked Franky as a character, because that seemed to be the only cahracter. to fair, I sound really harsh with that criticism. Part of the work is that they're capitalizing on heavy stereotyped characterizations. They expect you to already know the character type and build on that. Fair enough. And they stay true to that. the characters are not deep, but they're not meant to be, so it's ok.
They do a really good job hitting all the many types of pulp scenarios traditionally used. They even found a good way to let in dinosaurs. fun fun fun.
Too bad they don't stay true to the realism they develop. For example, If Sky Captain's got a crack army, why are they so crap? i mean, there's NO reason why, if a military outfit sees so many unidentified aircraft coming in so fast they wouldn't scramble at least a small unit of fighters. Just in case. Instead, they sat and waited for them to show up and shoot all their planes there on the airfield. Why? They could have still gotten the effect they wanted by having the good guys fight back
Also, if it's that lead ship that's boosting the signal, why doesn't cap shoot down the other aircraft? And if it's that ship, how can it be the evil robot lady agent?
i think I'm being fair and not just ignoring the genre it's part of. After all, I"m not one to care that they can fly straight to Nepal but they'll run out of feul on the way back, or that they just leave behind their buddy in nepal after it appears he's been betrayed by his own men and they don't know which ones, or that they have tons of ammo, or that they should all have radiation sickness. (though I do wonder why the amphibeous squadron isn't shooting back until the last unit...)