Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow ...

I don't know about you folks, but I love pulp fiction on the small and not so small screen – not the Tarantino movie (ok, I like that too, although it's not technically SFF), but the whole wide genre. From those old series like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers right through to the Indiana Jones blockbusters.

Well, if you feel the same, the first site of the month for the New Year should open up a cornucopia of delights for you. It's the online presence for what looks to be truly stunning movie, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

Produced by virgin filmmaker Kerry Conran, it combines live action and animation in a way not seen seen Ralph Bakshi's brave early attempt at Lord of the Rings. Apparently Conran two-minute pitch for it was 'Indiana Jones meets Independence Day'.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is placed in an alternative reality 1939, where Gwyneth Paltrow is the star lead as plucky New York journalist Polly Perkins. She starts off by covering the opening night premiere of Disney's Snow White but ends up working on a story surely borrowed from many an episode of Bond and Men from Uncle – to whit all the world's top scientists going missing one by one.

The mystery is deepened when New York is attacked by anonymous force of giant bird-like robot planes, not to mention towering mecha-like robot walkers straight from the imagination of some pre-war anime flick.

Luckily the Big Apple is protected by the American Flying Legion, and its ace pilot Captain Joseph Sullivan – aka Jude Law – the Sky Captain of the title. The Legion takes on the bad guys in their lethal Warhawk P-40s, and then set to work to trace the robot invasion back to its source.

On the way they join up with Angelina Jolie (Sky Captain Franky Cook), playing the commander of one of HM's mobile naval fortresses for this parallel reality's British Empire. Jolie also happens to be an old flame of Law's Sky Captain. She's investigating odd goings on in Nepal which turn out to be the work of the mad Doctor Totenkopf … cue some good old Nazi bashing and insane scientist action.

Made by Producer Aurelio De Laurentiis, this is the movie Paramount are chucking against Hellboy next Summer, so expect one heck of a publicity shock accompanying this film.

Kerry Conran is said to have got his movie made by impressing the socks off Aurelio De Laurentiis when showing Aurelio the fruit of some unique bespoke animation software our Kerry had cooked up. Said application creates an utterly complete CGI model storyboard, this 3D model then being combined with detailed illustrations and blue screened actors to churn out the final digital cut.

Is it a cartoon? Is it Tron for the new millennium? Well whatever magic they used, the trailer certainly blew my grundies off. In fact, they went up the chimney and are now rocketing towards Finland as you read this.

See for yourself across at www.SkyCaptain.com or catch the first trailer over here.

Stephen Hunt