The Sky Crawlers

I watched this movie with my friends 2 weeks ago.



To be fair again, before I start sharing my own view on this movie, I would like to declare here that, everyone's review of movies in this world is totally subjective based on ownself's knowledge of technicals, entertaining level, acceptance to public depending on different races, cultures etc. So there is no right or wrong, the only thing left is just about Agree or Disagree. =)

So, lets begin shall we? haha... Well, after watching the whole movie, I did have a feeling that this movie is not my cup of tea. haha.. The overall feeling about this movie is like a Wong Kar Wei (Hong Kong famous award winning director) movie. Except that I like Wong Kar Wei's movie better. hahaa...
I'm not saying that Arty-Farty movie isn't good, but sometimes it just doesn't work well if the director doesn't "slot in" the correct montage into correct space and timing. That's what I feel for The Sky Crawlers, although I realise that the story is adapted from a novel, which in fact I never read it before.

By just judging from the movie alone (watching as a brand new audience without knowing the original novel story), The Sky Crawler movie looks like a draggy movie with no better reason. Half way through it may seem like Arty-Farty, but after almost finish the movie, I just feel that the Arty-Farty was inserted with not much good reason, and in fact, most of the draggy shots are not so necessary, in my very humble opinion.

For example, most of the shots in The Sky Crawlers ended with long pause with frozen poses and almost lasted for 5-6 seconds. I'm not saying this type of movie-making style isn't good, but this type of style should be used carefully and meaningfully without over-using it. For The Sky Crawlers, this type of frozen poses at the end of the shot could be used in may be 2-3 shots which are considered necessary to bring some different taste to the audience once in a while throughout the movie. Unfortunately, the director has over-used them and put almost half of the movie into such dead silent frozen pose draggin all the way which doesn't look like meaningful or other words, kinda too much. Again, my point of view. Well, you may say I'm not the type of too-Arty-Farty person who may not appreciate super Arty-Farty movie which almost becomes much more boring than watching a screen saver of 3D square box rotating itself over 100 times. Sorry for the bad metaphor... haha.. =P



Well, story wise, there may be some little surprise at the end, but the technique of conveying is kinda "not fresh", and doesn't look like a surprise even though the story seems like trying to tell a small surprise to the audience. hahaa.. Anyway, overall feeling is, monotone.... sorry to say that, even though some may say "Hey! This is the famous Mamoru Oshii who made Ghost in the Shell you know! Who are you to judge his brilliant work!". hahahaa... well, I may not as old as him and as experienced as him, but when comes to movie and general entertainment, be it on the theater or small TV show, your feeling cannot lie to yourself. If your feeling feels something not right, that means that something is not your cup of tea or may be it doesn't work well to some other people.

I wasn't expecting funny or gags from this movie, I even knew that this movie is serious since it's an adaption from a existed novel. However, overall, it was really over-done. When it is overdone, the climax will be killed. Speaking of climax, I just want to say that, as far as i remember, I really couldn't find any proper climax which really could touch my heart (when i said touch, doesnt always mean related to crying.. if you know what i mean, ok). Again, overall, the graph of this movie pacing and excitement was just almost Monotone....not totally, but almost..

Enough story and pacing talk, lets move on to more technical stuff, like animation and CG adaption. Well, I dont feel like want to comment much, but i just wanted to say, the character animation is not really impressive compare to what I expected before watching this movie. Some parts may look good, but mainly , throughout whole animation, they just look flat and unlively and like almost dead zombies talking to each other (this may be over-exagerated but almost true..haha). Another specific pick is that, unnecessary fun dog animations had been inserted into too many scenes, which is also overly-done. Those effort should have been transfered to other character animations to make them better and lively. Other than that, there were also some parts which had no consistency of the main character's personality. From my observation, one character has been established to be having personality A, but all of a sudden, the animation style of the character in certain scenes gives away the believability of the first establishment for that character, and ended up confusing all the observant-type of audience. It may be not obvious to normal audience, but it just can't work for us who worked in the same field. Well, I'm not sure about how other animators think about this, but that's just my own view. May be that's what it is from the novel.. I never know. Pardon me if I'm wrong. =)



Ok, next, CG. There were quite a lot of CG in this movie especially those Fighters scene and Base n stuff. As far as the color and style concerns, I would say, it can be considered a weird combination, which may be or may be not acceptable to a lot of people. Well, it started to make me feel that it worked for me, but slowly observing more scenes like sky view and mountains and other scenery, i realised there were too many types, in terms of color schemes and textures. I could at least find 3 different types of backgrounds schemes and styles throughout the whole movie. Well, for normal audience it may look good or stylish or something new, but well, to me, I wasn't trying to be stone-head, but but... i just thought that it's kinda like a bit inconsistent in terms of overall movie designs.... well, it's subjective again... that's just what i feel..hahaa... =P

However, I have to say that I love the designs of the planes and the mood of the planes with certain backgrounds was good too, IF, I judge it scene by scene without considering consistency with other scenes. =)

Ok lar... I guess it's about time I pen off.. though I never use any pen to write this.. Duh~!! hahahaaa...
Well, finally, like other reviewers around the world, I would like to rate for this movie based on my own humble personal view of movies (coz I love movies!). =D

My Rate for The Sky Crawler is as followed:

Overall Story: 5/10
Technical (Animation): 6/10
Technical (CG/Designs): 6/10
Technical (Story Editing/Pacing): 5/10
Technical (Sound Effects/Music): 6.5/10

Average Rate of the movie: 5.7/10

p/s: Although I'm not fan of Ghost in the Shell, I think I like it much better than The Sky Crawler. =P

~End~