From IMDb 1 hour and 29 minutes, rated 4.2 by 328.
RAAF officer Wagga Wagga Jones is assigned a secret and mysterious flight by Nemesis, an old rival, in August 1945. WW Jones has foresight, because even as he takes the assignment, he knows the war is about to end. This fact is something that no one else knew at the time, when feverish and enormous preparations were being made for a million-man invasion of the Japanese homeland with the expectation of a terrible price. Nemesis makes threatening noises and WW laughs them off. The fraternity brothers groaned with boredom already.
The cargo for this flight include an American general in an anachronistic uniform, a C of E vicar, and a couple of grunts, oh, and big wooden box with a very large label that says Do Not Open. (Wanna guess what happens?) Off they go in a Dakota (Douglas C-47) but no sooner do they set about bickering among themselves than they run into a CGI storm that throws everything about and they end up the water where the Red Shirts die. It seems one of now deceased grunts opened the box to find a light for his smoke. This individual was the product of free public education and carefully selected for this super duper top most secret mission, he evidently could not read the label.
Thereafter it descends into a delirium of images floating by, Easter Island Heads, Bermuda shorts, Stonehenge parking lots, an IBM selectric, Old Faithful, and Old Yeller, too. There is no rhyme or reason to it, but one thing is clear…..! Erich did it! Yes, ‘what other explanation could there be, but aliens?’ Well, could be the scriptwriter was chemically enhanced at the keyboard!
There is no whip, but there is a large pistol, a leather jacket that WW seems to wear even under his scuba driving gear, which he carries in the map pocket of his Lands End chinos. The sets are barren. Three is a crowd. The uniforms are inaccurate. WW’s mystique is sadly lacking. The haircuts are not military. There is a mixture of Indiana Jones and Mad Max in a pastiche of scenes that seldom connect one to another from Ayers Rock (unseen) to a cave on Easter Island (in a Melbourne sound studio).
There is a love interest who screams and faints in the 1950s manner. In frustration she assaulted the scriptwriter and quit the business. Whoa. Just made that up. But she should have. She did quit.
At forty-one WW remains a lieutenant. At forty-one he is greying at the temples. At forty-one he is creaking at the joints on some of the moves he makes. But at forty-one he is John Hargreaves whom the camera always loved and does so here. It is pretty clear he is in on the joke and makes sure any unfortunates who paid to see this blur get it, too. Bill Hunter injects some gravitas. Sky Pilot Max Phipps tries way too hard.
Why it is called ‘Sky Pirates’ is anyone’s guess. There is plenty of sky, but no Johnny Depp to be seen.
The only Sy Fy element is the reference to aliens, but since it came up in a search for Sy Fy, I had to watch it to be sure. The IMDb give its genre as Sci-fi as well as Adventure.
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