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By: Iggy Michniacki on 5.22.2009
The Movie Itself:
Every once in a while a movie comes along that is so outstanding it positively affects every person who sees it. Those movies are spread few and far between, and The Sky Crawlers is the farthest thing from one of those movies. Honestly though, The Sky Crawlers targets such a specific audience, it’s hard for an ‘outsider’ (such as myself) to enjoy it at all.
Kannami is one of the best fighter pilots there is. He’s quick, stunning, and terrific in the sky; in fact, he’s a regular ace. The only problem is Kannami’s past is murky, and he’s not even sure how he is a good pilot, as well as where he previously was. When Kannmai shows up to his new station, he meets the three other pilots that are there as well as his commanding officer, Suito Kusanagi. Kusanagi seems vaguely familiar to Kannami, as well as everything else about the base he is stationed at. Quickly jumping into the action, Kannami wastes no time showing off his skills and acting as a great pilot, but at the same time Kannami starts to question things all around him, especially his connection with Kusanagi. When Kannami and some other pilots come across ‘The Teacher’, the enemy pilot that teaches all, the war is taken to a whole new level. Soon after that enemy discovers their place, Kannami’s troop must move to an allied base and all the allies plan a massive attack to take on the enemy. When the attack fails, Kannami is quickly upset and once again fights for more answers.
Answers are something that don’t come lightly in this movie. As muddy as the previous paragraph seems, that is about as thick as the plot goes for somebody unfamiliar with the books. In fact, the first hour and forty-five minutes is spent creating a list of questions that most get answered in an unsatisfying sixty second conversation with another pilot that is introduced fifteen minutes prior to that scene. Most of those answers, although kept secret through the movie, are on the back of the movie insert, on every website discussing The Sky Crawlers and, of course, in the books. The biggest question is the youth of the pilots and why there are adults and those who will never become adults. Kannami is a kildren, which is treated as the first movie secret. Kildren, are young adolescents created by humans to fight a war that isn’t really a war. These kildren can’t age, and can’t live a normal life as they have all been created for fighting. They do everything the same as humans, and in many cases adults, but they were created for the sole purpose of entertainment. The war, another movie question that arises, is a war of entertainment that helps create violent substance for civilians during peace time. ‘The Teacher’ is an adult pilot on the enemy side that is so good nobody can defeat him. There are about thirty other questions (or it feels like that many) that come up during the movie and are spilled out in that same conversation, but many of those are kept secret – for real this time. The movie, though, isn’t completely about having questions answered as it does focus on an underlying meaning that Oshii has directed before.
The basic idea that Hiroshi Mori (novel writer) and Mamoru Oshii (director) are trying to push across is the same basic idea of Oshii’s other works, Ghost in the Shell and Innocence. That idea revolves around the struggle of humanity and that which humanity has created. Of course The Sky Crawlers goes at it in a completely different manner and seems to fall flat on it’s face compared to Oshii’s other titles. Kildren are humanoids, created by humans, to fight for entertainment. These kildren have fought for a long, undisclosed time and they are now starting to question things and further more, are starting to act human. Views can be different on how the message of ‘humanity’ versus ‘created by humanity’ comes across in this movie, but there should be no argument this is on of Oshii’s favorite topics.
The movie itself is very, very slow paced. Characters aren’t developed at all, as right from the get-go you are left guessing about people, including our star, Kannami. There are pilots all around Kannami that I have left unnamed because there were never any details on them, even the ones that are with Kannami from beginning to end. The plot doesn’t seem to give anything as it tries so hard to gather up these ‘secrets’ and bottle them up without leaking anything. When the first hour and a half finally passes by, the last half hour winds down rather quickly but in a very disappointing manner. In fact, the climax is rather flat and depressing, spilling all the answers we wanted out in a boring conversation where the main character seems unaffected by any of the life changing things he was just told. There are really very few positives that come out of this movie. In fact there was even a disappointing scene that took a few minutes out of my life to show a dog urinate… seriously!
Sky Crawlers comes from a popular series of books that explores a world completely unlike the world we are connected with on a day to day basis. The movie saw rave reviews, as well as international film festival nominations and awards for its ‘awe-inspiring’ story. Lets just say there was no ‘awe’ from me and I was far from ‘inspired’. This isn't my cup of tea. Hell, I don’t even drink tea! To be frank, with how long, slow, and unsatisfying The Sky Crawlers is, it probably isn’t the cup of tea for most other people as well.
Rating: 2/10
The Presentation:
The Blu-ray presentation was a completely different story than the movie itself, with both the video and the audio being brilliant. Sony brings The Sky Crawlers to Blu-ray via a AVC 1080p Mpeg-4 codec that is outstanding. My jaw latterly dropped on the first scene, causing me to pause it and take it all in. Right from the get-go the picture jumps from the screen, especially with the three-dimensional animation… wow, just wow! The jet sequences are stunning, jumping right out at you. The scenic shots look so stunning and real, I thought I was looking through a window. The shots with water were simply outstanding, with both rain and large bodies of water just looking fantastic. Colors are bold, strong and true. The movie favors the color green, but completely at director’s intent. There’s no scratches, no noise, no grain, no interference of any kind, just great and clear animation.
The video is stunning, but there is one reason it falls shy of perfect. The movie uses both three-dimensional animation and two-dimensional animation and when those are mixed in the same scene it can lead to a bit of a flat image. The three-dimensional background makes the two-dimensional image look very flat and awkward in some shots, but other than that this is reference material.
The audio is on par with the video presentation as well. Although not as perfect, the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 tracks are amazing. Sampling both the Japanese TrueHD track and the English TrueHD track I could tell early on these would be a treat. Conversations are crisp and clear never getting drowned out. The surround sound speakers do shine, especially during flight sequences. Noise is all around the room, and noises from the speaker match up with their counterparts on the screen flawlessly. The subwoofer had a good time with this movie as well, staying active but not getting over used. I was very pleased with this audio presentation. There were times were the English track didn’t sound as stunning as the Japanese track though, but other than that The Sky Crawlers sounds very nice.
Rating: 9/10 (video 9/10, audio 8/10)
 The Extras:
The extra features continue my rollercoaster review (filled with ups and downs). There are only three extra features but they are presented in high definition, in fact one of them is exclusive to the Blu-ray.
Animation Research for The Sky Crawlers Featurette (HD): Follow the animation team and see what they did to work on getting beautiful three-dimensional animation to work with great, classic two-dimensional animation.
The Sound Design and Animation of The Sky Crawlers Featurette (HD): Follow further into the making of the movie with the sound and animation. This featurette shows how the audio and video was done. It’s not as brilliant as the presentation itself.
BD Exclusive – “Sky’s the Limit”: Interview with Director Mamoru Oshii (HD): Oshii talks about The Sky Crawlers, why he did what he did, and why he did what he didn’t.
There is also BD-Live content that is unavailable at the time of review. Most likely though there will be content upon release day or shortly after.
Rating: 4/10
Overall:
The Sky Crawlers is a movie that will be loved or hated, and I don’t think many people will be sitting on the fence in between. The movie targets a specific audience with knowledge of both Hiroshi Mori and Mamoru Oshii in the past and, even better, some experience with the novel series of ‘Sukai Kurora’. The Blu-ray, though, is worth at least a peak with near-reference picture quality and amazing audio. Fans should rejoice with this release, those who don’t know about the movie may want to rent, if just to see how good it looks.
Rating: 6/10
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