Ghost in the Shell Reviews

I already saw this movie but since I just bought an awesome brand new TV, I thought I might as well check it out again. Well, even though this movie was a critical and commercial flop when it was released, to be honest, I don’t think it was so bad after all. Indeed, the whole thing looked amazing, the action scenes were badass and they managed to nail the mood of the original Japanese animated feature. However, even if the story was decent enough, unfortunately, they did make some mistakes though. Of course, there was the whole controversy about casting Scarlett Johansson in the lead role and I think she was indeed miscast but not because she is not Asian. I mean, since Johansson is one of the only bankable actresses in the world, it completey made sense that the producers chose her so the whole white-washing controversy was rather ridiculous and even Mamoru Oshii, the director of 'Kokaku Kidotai', gave his blessing. What bother me with her was the fact she was just too small to play the Major (1,60 meters), she wasn’t physically threatening enough and I never had the feeling that she was actually a lethal killing machine. Furthermore, even though she is usually a decent actress, I thought she gave a rather weak performance which was rather surprising since she complained nailed it a couple of years ago with a similar character in ‘Under the Skin’. On the other hand, she wasn’t helped by the fact that they pretty much ruined her character. Indeed, one of the major trademarks of ‘Ghost in Shell’ is the fact that the Major is a cold, mysterious and ambiguous character. The fact that she might be struggling with her identity was always only implied and never really stated but, in this US version, it became a major focus which completely changed this character and, in the process, she became just too weak and emotional. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I still think that it could have been so much worse and I believe it is actually worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

In the near future, Major is the first of her kind: a human saved from a terrible crash, who is cyber-enhanced to be a perfect soldier devoted to stopping the world's most dangerous criminals.

Let me preface this by saying I haven't read the Ghost in the Shell manga – I've only seen the classic 1995 movie – so I came at this movie from a different perspective than a hardcore fan might: I was simply comparing one movie to another. As a remake, it gave me a somewhat different story, yes, but it came across to me as an extremely derivative one. A cyborg getting flashes of memory from their past life and trying to figure out their identity? Now, where have I heard that before? Yeah, you get my drift: the plot is literally just RoboCop! Any similarities to Ghost in the Shell are purely superficial references, like the invisible street fight, the underwater scene and the climactic tank battle. (Speaking of which, that scene seems surprisingly so much smaller and less grandiose than the animated version.)

Even the villain is a letdown: gone is the fascinating Puppet Master, to be replaced by just another victim of the corrupt system.

I liked the original film, but it didn't wow me like it did so many other people. But even so, I found this movie to be an insult to its predecessor. It's dull, uninspired, and apparently owes more to RoboCop than it does to Ghost in the Shell.

My rating: 40%

On the one hand, Ghost in the Shell isn't a disaster. Given the history of videogame and anime movie adaptations, that's a considerable accomplishment. At the very least, it drew a faithful real-life portrait of the cyberpunk world of Ghost in the Shell and hit most of the iconic action beats of the original animated film. On the other hand, it tossed most of the important themes and potent atmosphere (the things that make GitS great) out the window in pursuit of a simplified, easily digestible plot. The dialogue lacked any nuance and the best modern CG and special effects don't look as good or feel as compelling as the hand drawn animation of 22 years ago.

The movie is at its best in the action scenes where thermoptic camouflage comes to life and when the creepy geisha bots and other maliciously hacked technology instill the cold blooded potential of transhumanism in our psyche. Also good are the quieter moments when Batou feeds the neighborhood dogs (including a basset hound, of course) and the Major quietly explores the world, searching for her place in it. The movie loses its way when the driving force of the plot becomes the scandal behind how the Major was created (instead of the much more important philosophical question about what her existence means) and the villain emerges as the most typical of bad guy cliches.

There's also some glaring hypocrisy in the ending (spoiler) since our heroic characters have been going on about justice and not killing people, and in the climax, they summarily execute the villain instead of bringing him to justice. The Major, in fact, explicitly calls for this, even though she was the most vocal opponent of unjust killing and human rights abuse throughout the film. Character motivation? Consistency? Feh. You can certainly argue that the villain deserved to die, but ordering an execution of someone who's surrendered makes every word the Major spoke earlier feel completely hollow.

Despite its flaws, I felt engaged. It was well paced, the casting was solid and the acting was serviceable. It was competently filmed, if not dazzling in its angles. I never once looked at my watch (always a good sign) and there were moments, such as Batou losing his human eyes to cybernetic eyes, that offered something different from the animated films and were genuinely cool to see in live action.

It's definitely worth a watch, but I wouldn't rush to the theater to see it. This movie feels like it was tailor made for streaming services to cure your boredom on a rainy afternoon or quiet evening. If you're a GitS fan, you'll almost definitely enjoy it more if you approach this adaptation with low expectations. As a film, it's only slightly better than mediocre, and yet, I was prepared for so much worse. So, while it's a back-handed compliment, I feel like this is the best GitS adaptation that could have been made by the creatively bankrupt Hollywood of 2017. The brilliance of Mamoru Oshii was never within their reach.