Mamoru Oshii'sThe Sky Crawlers(2008) plays like a mixture ofTop GunandSerial 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 Crawlershad 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 watershedGhost in the Shell. (Rated PG-13:   Violence, sexual situations, alcohol and tobacco use)--Charles Solomon