The Sky Crawlers
This is a movie that came out in 2008 made by Mamoru Oshii, known best for the Ghost in the Shell and Patlabor franchises.
At first I thought this movie was just a really awesome looking WW2 fighter anime, but I discovered it was more complex than that.
The good:
The CG in this movie has to be the best part of it. The visuals of planes flying around in the skies are just amazingly realistic and beautiful. The animation was also amazingly good, besides the fact that all the characters had enormous round pupils and it made their eyes creepy as hell.
The not so good:
There just wasn't as many awesome CG battles as I expected. For the fact this movie appears to be a movie about aerial combat, there's not as much as I was hoping.
The thing is, this movie is less about aerial combat and more about people. It's a character drama through and through. And there's not much of a plot at all. No conflict, no enemy to fight against. I actually found myself bored with the movie halfway through because there was no sense of tension or conflict whatsoever.
*Some spoilers*
This series is set in an alternate world where Kildren, people who are perpetually teenagers, work as fighter pilots for companies. It takes forever for the movie to explain exactly what's going on, which they did on purpose. They didn't want to reveal the true nature of the Kildren's world but rather let the viewer figure it all out. I pretty much had it figured out by the beginning.
In this world, two companies, the hero's company based in Europe, and the enemy's company based in the UK, fight areal warfare with the Kildren. The reason they do this, explained gradually through the movie, was to keep peace in the world. As long as the kildren were fighting their battles for the entertainment of the masses, real war wouldn't break out. "We are at war with Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia." The reason the kildren are perpetually adolsecent is to keep them at the age where they're in their peak form. The whole point of the Kildren is they were genetically engineered to fight each other and kill each other to maintain world peace.
But that's not it. The Kildren never "die". Why waste a perfectly good pilot with death? It's not explained how, but when a Kildren dies, their body is made anew, their memories are wiped, and they're given a new name. The kildren also are engineered so they don't remember anything after a week or so. The whole thing reminds me of Dark City but worse.
But that's the thing. The whole movie is from the point of view of the main character, who is assigned to an airbase, not remembering his past, as he tries to figure out what's going on and what his purpose is. There's no real plot. No climax. When he finally figures out what's going on, he doesn't try to fight the system, he just accepts it.
As a character drama, it's not bad. The social commentary about war and young people was somewhat interesting. But it's no action film. And if you're watching it like I was, expecting lots of epic air battles, you'll be disappointed.
TL;DR
A slice-of-life character-driven drama disguising itself as a CG WWII-style action movie. If you don't mind waiting for the few awesome-looking CG battles, or you don't mind a story with no climatic ending or resolution, and you don't mind watching a thinking man's movie, you might enjoy this. If you expect a mindless action flick go somewhere else.
Also, Basset Hounds.
