The Sky Crawlers

• Directed by Mamoru Oshii
• August 2, 2008 (Japan)
• Based on Hiroshi Mori’s 2001 novel series The Sky Crawlers

Voice Cast

• Yūichi Kannami-Michael Sinterniklaas
• Suito Kusanagi-Stephanie Sheh
• Naofumi Tokino-Troy Baker
• Mizuki Kusanagi-Bryce Hitchcock
• Aizu Yudagawa, Blond-Haired Children-Doug Erholtz
• Fūko-Kirsten Potter
• Towa Sasakura-Mari Devon
• Mission Briefer-Paul St. Peter

A group of eternally young fighter pilots experience the loss of innocence and the stress of combat.

The Sky Crawlers is a film with so much potential but fails to quite get there. It is not bad but far less than it could be. Mostly because it fails to do very much in the way of letting the audience in on what is going on until the end. No real hints dropped along the way that are innocuous at first but obvious in hindsight. Up until the last third or so of the film you have very little context concerning the world in which the story occurs. And it does not feel like a mystery that the audience is learning about as the film progresses but rather that the people behind this expected viewers to have familiarity with the material.

The significant characters are essentially children who have been engineered to remain eternally young. There are a handful of supporting adult characters though none hint even in hindsight of the answer to the big question: are they copies of the deceased? Even the woman named Fuuko who appears to be a prostitute and had a relationship with main character Kannami’s predecessor Jinroh never really hints at too much.

I myself didn’t quite get it all till I did a little quick reading on this movie. I enjoyed what I watched. I would’ve enjoyed it more if the elements had been brought to the forefront a little better rather than a left floating around in the background barely touched on.

This is an alternate history where the world is at peace, but the population is accustomed to war so two rival private corporations, the Poland-based Rostock and the Ireland-based Lautern, use fighter pilots to engage in combat against each other. Our story focuses on a group of engineered pilots called ‘Kildren’ who might be just repeated copies. It has something to do with the innocence of youth with that revelation coming after one of the characters had boinked with a hooker. You know. Innocent stuff.

This movie is a slow burn and that certainly doesn’t help things either. It takes its good old time getting from Point A to Point B and that trip is occasionally interrupted by some cool aerial footage. On that end visually the movie is absolutely stunning. The aerial fights and the plane designs are just fantastic. It makes me kind of want an animated World War II film.

I can’t say hated it. I liked it well enough and it was interesting enough that I could certainly see myself popping it in again. Sometimes a movie takes a second viewing to fully appreciate it and I can certainly see that happening with this. I was just left with some questions.

The Sky Crawlers is not bad, but it suffers from not explaining nearly enough of what is going on. It just dumps it all at the end. It’s an enjoyable enough movie but be warned that it may take more than one viewing to fully appreciate it.