"Ghost in the Shell" (2017)

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%