Amazon.com: Mamoru Oshii's The Sky Crawlers (2008) plays like a mixture of Top Gun and Serial Experiments Lain. Although teenage fighter pilot Yuichi lacks Tom Cruise's good looks, he's the ace of his unit at the Rostock Corporation, performing elaborate maneuvers and bringing down enemy planes. Yuichi and his fellow pilots are mysterious beings known as "Kildren:" they never age, but remain teenagers their entire lives. When commander Suito learns that the Kildren are products of a mysterious genetic experiment, she begins to suspect that she and the pilots are used, discarded, and replaced, like so many spare parts. Yuichi doesn't just resemble Jinroh, the former pilot of his plane (and Suito's lover); he's the reincarnation of Jinroh. These revelations would pack more punch if the characters weren't such nonentities. Yuichi and the other pilots express so little emotion, they make Keanu Reeves seem like a dynamic presence. Oshii uses computer animation for the elaborate aerial dogfights, although the realistically rendered, three-dimensional aircraft never mesh with the flat, two-dimensional characters. Sky Crawlers had a decidedly mixed reaction in Japan, and its limited theatrical release in the U.S. failed to generate much excitement. It's a disappointing effort from the creator of the watershed Ghost in the Shell. (Rated PG-13: Violence, sexual situations, alcohol and tobacco use) --Charles Solomon
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) Binding: Blu-ray Brand: Sony Pictures Home ENT EAN: 0043396307520 Format: AC-3, Animated, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen Item Dimensions:25 Label: Sony Pictures Languages:JapaneseOriginal LanguageEnglishSubtitledFrenchSubtitledSpanishSubtitledEnglishDubbedSpanishDubbed Manufacturer: Sony Pictures MPN: 043396307520 Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Sony Pictures Release Date: May 26, 2009 Running Time: 122 minutes Studio: Sony Pictures Theatrical Release Date: 2008
Customer Reviews
A very beautiful anime masterpiece!
I can't believe all of the negative reviews on Amazon for The Sky Crawlers. It is an incredible movie and one of Oshii's best in my opinion. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, but the other more extensive positive reviews on here say it all. It is a slowly paced movie but I didn't get bored at all or ever see any pacing problems. I guess some people just didn't expect what they got from it. I loved it and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys animation and Sci-Fi that makes you think and ... Read More