WOW! That was surprisingly fast actually. I was able to find a subbed version of The Sky Crawlers the very morning after I posted about it's release as a raw file. Which of course meant I was able to watch it at home on Tuesday night. It is licensed for an American release by Sony Pictures but I haven't seen any details on when that might be. Hopefully soon because it is definitely on my MUST BUY list. It's also available to be saved to your queue on Netflix as well.
So of course we need to get the nitty gritty stuff out of the way. If you're a fan of Ghost in the Shell than you'll know many of the people behind this film as well. Directed by Mamoru Oshii with CGI by Polygon Pictures studio and animated by Production I.G with music from Kenji Kawai also some where in all that mess is Skywalker Ranch (I watched the credits and saw they did something but can't remember what it was) as well. With all that packaged into this film you know that Crawlers is going to look and sound fantastic. OK so the cast of characters sometimes seem like an afterthought and the basset hound seems like a more interesting character than some of the people. That all goes by the way side when you get to the 3D CG of the planes and how effing awesome they look. The chrome/polished steel? on the big bombers was WOW impressive even on my non HD LCD screen. I can't even imagine how effing sweet it'll look on BD. There are some scenes that really do just stand out not only from looking great but by the use of music or even sometimes the lack of any but the minimalist of sounds.
You know it sounds and looks good but what about the story? Well since this is actually part of a larger story there isn't any but a little bit of background on what is going on outside of the air base but that's sort of the point since this is more a story of the people on the base than on why or who they are fighting. For me it felt like watching a few older WWII fighter plane movies that I've watched growing up the new guy arrives and has to learn the ropes and we are guided along with him as he gets settled down then about half way though we switch to being more engrossed with what the leader is doing. In this case the leader is the female air commander Kusanagi who takes a liking to the new guy Kannami because it turns out that Kannami is pretty much a clone of Kusanagi's former lover. Kusanagi tries to get Kannami to do for her what she did for her former lover and that's to kill her. See that's the big twist not only is the war a farce and just entertainment for the people but the pilots are immortal adolescents called Kildren who can't age nor die unless they are shot down in a dogfight, or apparently shot by your lover. Then they simply come back as some one else with no real memories as to what came before or the ability to question what comes next yet they have the same habits, skills and personality as the one that came before. It makes for an interesting story that's for sure even if it does wander at times.
Crawlers is a great film and I gave it five stars out of five on Netflix (which is like at 3.5 stars overall) and it's definitely one that you need to watch more than once. It works a bit better when you know more about the background but you don't need to know that to enjoy it either. Don't forgot to keep watching after the credits too.
