I’m not sure whether to praise this one with faint damns, or damn it with faint praise.

First, let’s get rid of the idea that this is the first completely CGI film — that would be to ignore Final Fantasy of several years ago, in which even the major characters were CGI (and, at first glance, indistinguishable from real actors).

Second, let’s kick the nostalgia habit. OK, thirties comic books were good for the thirties, but their style is really out of place for an early twenty-first century audience. Although, who knows, they and their relatives the pulps may come back into style someday.

But … if you want nostalgia, this is not a bad film. Giant robots (CGI generated) are invading New York (CGI generated) and wreaking havoc (CGI generated). Scientists are disappearing. Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow), mild-mannered … well, maybe not quite … reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, is on their track, when not busy avoiding the stomping feet of giant CGI-generated robots, and her path crosses that of old flame (until some unspecified incident in Nanking, China) Joe Sullivan (Jude Law), AKA “Sky Captain”, who has his own private army-navy-air-force situated on an island somewhere in the New York area. Together, and after Sullivan’s base and army are mostly destroyed and his main factotum Dex (Giovanni Ribisi) is carried off, they set out to find the mysterious Dr. Totenkopf (the very late Sir Laurence Olivier, and one wonders what his estate thinks of this film) who is apparently responsible for these evil happenings. Turns out that Totenkopf believes the world is doomed, has created a giant interplanetary ark, and is about to launch it into space, with consequences that will be fatal for our globe’s atmosphere. With a little help from a flotilla of British flying aircraft carriers, commanded by the luscious Captain Cook (Francesca Cook, AKA Angelina Jolie), with whom Sullivan is familiar from Nanking, China, our hero and heroine succeed in defeating this if not evil at least thoughtless plot.

Expect little. Enjoy what you get.