Ghost in the Shell Review

PG13:  Intense Sequences of Sci-Fi Violence, Suggestive Content, and Some Disturbing Images

Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, Reliance Entertainment

2 Hrs

Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Takeshi Kitano, Michael Pitt, Pilou Asbæk, Chin Han. Juliette Binoche

REVIEW: Welcome back to another episode of Americans Approaching Anime. The last time we left off the Hollywood studios, we saw Spike Lee attempt his own American version of Oldboy based off the manga of the same name in 2013. Lee was ambitious for he tried, but the film was both a critical and financial failure and never hit the amazingness of the manga let alone its South Korean film adaptation. It was neither a step up or a step down for Americans appropriating manga adaptations. Now we have Rupert Sander’s adaptation of Ghost in the Shell a film based off the anime that was based off the manga of the same name. Will this adaptation bring Hollywood up or get so low Dragonball: Evolution will have to be forgiven?

In the near future, Major (Scarlett Johansson) 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. When terrorism reaches a new level that includes the ability to hack into people's minds and control them, Major is uniquely qualified to stop it. As she prepares to face a new enemy, Major discovers that she has been lied to: her life was not saved, it was stolen. She will stop at nothing to recover her past, find out who did this to her and stop them before they do it to others. Based on the internationally acclaimed Japanese Manga, "The Ghost in the Shell.”

THE GOOD:  The film recreates shots from its source material that is honestly beautiful to watch. You can do side by side comparisons with the film and its anime. It truly is a beautiful reflection to see. Maybe I’m diving way too deep into this blockbuster wannabe but by the film’s climax, the film becomes self-aware of its American casting that leads to an exciting third act action sequence that I like more than its anime. The last act does go full Hollywood Blockbuster route but it has an emotional and meaningful conclusion.

Michael Pitt’s performance of Kuze is rather impressive. For one, Kuze was the first of his kind before Major which means he has more of a robot's quality than Major. Not only he looks more like a cyborg, but he sounds like IBM’s Watson.  You know that talking computer program that can win jeopardy on its own. I don’t know if it was Pitt or the film’s sound designer, but I loved how Kuze sound through the film. Another performance I thoroughly enjoyed was Pilou Asbæk as Batou. He’s one of the only characters who is faithful to his anime counterpart. He constantly steals the show for he is lively and is very humorous. Besides it being a live-action remake of the anime, it's also an origin story of how these characters came to be like how Batou got his badass eyes.

THE BAD: Originally I defended Johansson citing Major as long as she doesn’t pull a Great Wall Matt Damon. I know she was cast to put American asses into seats, but the film truthfully captures the look the physical look of her. Johansson actually does look like Major, but her performance doesn't give her character justice. The screenplay utterly dumbs her down so the audience can keep up with what is going on in the film’s story.

Though she never gets Justin Chatwin level of bad,  but she is deadpan and monotone for the majority (no pun intended) of the film. Though that is major’s character because she is a living mind inside of a robot, but in the anime, she had a range of expressions which Johansson doesn’t do. The original Major was smart and picked up on the information that is given to her. 

Last month I attended a 15-minute sneak preview of the film where it looked like it was aiming for an R rating for it had blood in some of the opening’s action sequence maintaining its faith to its source material. When it got its official PG13 rating from the MPAA I was thinking that hit can still maintain its amount of blood. NOPE! Bloodless like a PG13 film could be. Call me old fashion, but I remember when PG13 action films had blood with its violence before the MPAA turned into pussies. Fans of Ghost in the Shell want to see a lot of scenes recreated in the bloody fashion it was depicted. When you just make every gun wound bloodless it takes away from the enjoyment of this. And showing it in slow motion doesn't help it either. At least with Oldboy, Lee maintained the film's R rating. The visual effects are hit at miss where some of it is so good that it enhances the film’s 3D experience, but at worst it looks like a cutscene of a Final Fantasy game. 

Like Disney’s Beauty and the Beast  some shit is best left animated. At least, Disney, they know their business states and know its demographic. The real problem with Ghost in the Shell is that it doesn’t know what it wants to be and know who to aim it for. With the anime, there was an aesthetic beauty and liveliness with both the story and the animation. For a 1995 anime, the film had a beautiful mixture of 2D animation on a 3D landscape. Now you just have VFX that is can either be one or the other. This doesn’t have the effective beauty the original film had which this majorly fails with (I SWEAR I AM NOT DOING THESE MAJOR PUNS ON PURPOSE). 

The movie will think it’s audiences is stupid at times that it affects the character of Major. They put the title card twice. The original anime didn’t need all this useless exposition. These character’s motivations decisions are so scattered brained that the decisions that they make are  just for the convince of the plot opposed to displaying any emotion.

For movies starring Scarlett Johansson as a highly intelligent machine, I like this far more than Lucy but far less than Her. The end of the second act is where the film gets more engaging. The dialogue is still terrible but it becomes far more enticing.

Believe it or not, there is an odd amount of product placement in this. In the city lights, one of the biggest logos that you see on one of the buildings is Honda. Not Hanka (the organization that created Major) but Honda. It's weird at first, but as the film goes on, it gets even weirder. Later in the movie, you see Major driving a Motorcycle that has the Honda logo both in the front and in the back as well. I guess in the future Honda will become one of the last existing car companies. If you don’t think that is weird, the film even incorporates this meme into one of the backgrounds: 

I don’t know why. I can’t even comprehend the reason why but it's there and when you find it, believe me, your eyes will roll to the back of your head. I know a lot of cyberpunk cities in movies look the same nowadays but it doesn’t mean you have to rely on product placements.

LAST STATEMENT: Rupert Sander’s Ghost in the Shell is ambitious, but its lack of character in order for its dumbed down story make this adaptation a major dud.

Rating: 2/5 | 47%

Super Scene: Batou and Major on a boat.