Summary
Major Mira Killian will stop at nothing to track down Section 9’s greatest enemy, a cyber terrorist, callsign: The Puppetmaster. As she unravels the mystery behind him, will she unravel herself in a miasma of blocked memories and identity? Are these all just byproducts of being a cyborg?
My Thoughts
I’ve seen this movie twice. The only reason I watched it a second time is that I reviewed the original anime and felt like I had to review this one too. I didn’t want to watch it. You shouldn’t either. If you think this movie looks cool, watch the 1995 “Ghost in the Shell” instead. If you want to watch this because Scarlett Johansson is in it, watch “Under the Skin,” instead.
If after all this, you still watch this movie. I’m sorry. You’ve just had two hours of your life sucked away.
Why It’s Bad
1. It removes the mystery of the original by telling you too much early in the film.
2. It doesn’t trust its audience to realize that some characters are almost entirely within the data network and instead gives them bodies for us to tangibly see.
3. This destroys the central theme of the original which is about what makes a human. A body? A mind? A soul (ghost)? Without this theme the movie is a simple gutting of the core of the anime.
4. Major’s suit looks terrible. By that I mean that it looks like a suit. Major doesn’t wear a cybernetic suit. She IS cybernetic, however in this film, one never escapes the feeling that Scarlett Johansson is wearing a suit of armor over her body. Her entire body should feel like armor itself.
5. Many of the fight scenes look terrible and uninteresting. The only exception is the initial attempted kidnapping scene.
6. Major’s character resolution is strange and unnecessary.
7. An ending that comes out of nowhere and feels more like it was motivated by telling dumb audiences that the movie was over and that the bad guys had lost than by any internal story reasons.
8. Scarlett Johansson’s acting feels wooden and depressed, not cybernetic. She looks like a bored student, not an investigator or a cybernetic being who has moved beyond emotion.
9. The film doesn’t make you think about the future at all or the consequences/results of certain technological advancements being made today. Probably because the studio thinks that sort of thing will detract from a movie by making audiences think. Audiences are dumb, right?
10. The film is lazy. It shines a bright light on every little tidbit you need to track the plot, which aren’t many. Rather than subtly teasing out conflict it shouts the conflicts at the audience so as not to lose them. What results, is a simple effects movie with only a couple of really cool action scenes.
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