Checked out Ghost in the Shell, the new Scarlett Johansson action sci-fi flick loosely based on the original anime film (and possibly some of its spinoffs) from the mid 90s. I’m of two minds about this pic. As a stand-alone film, it’s a pretty mediocre action flick. As a retelling of the anime, it’s a dumbed-down, simplified, doesn’t-respect-the-audience betrayal. I’ll mostly stick to it as a stand-alone (complex) though.
In the future, as the tired opening text tells us, man and machine are merging and causing problems. Criminals and cops all have cybernetic improvements to the point where its hard to tell where human ends and machine begins. ScarJo’s character is the first of her kind to have her human mind transplanted into an all-machine body. The question of whether her “ghost” (her mind/soul/spirit) can exist in the shell (the robotic body) is the question of the movie and one they take some embarrassingly desperate expository opening scene dialog to explain to the dumb audience who might otherwise spend the movie confused about the title of the movie. “Ghost? Shell? I don’t see no ghost OR shells. This is a rip-off!” Sigh.
And this is one of the big problems – the movie mostly just wants to get to the good parts so we stupid movie goers won’t get bored. The original anime is heavily engrossed in philosophy and has an overly complicated plot involving multiple government organizations, hackers, spying, defections to foreign countries… you really have to pay attention to figure out what’s going on. This new movie is just a straight-up revenge film. “They done her wrong so now she’s on the war-path” type story. They over-corrected and made a super generic storyline that you’ve seen many, many times before.
Which would be ok if the movie had interesting or compelling characters, action, or even philosophy. But the movie is SO focused on ScarJo that they manage to introduce her team but they barely have anything to do. ScarJo is directed to act like an emotionless machine so its hard to really care for her… which is a problem where the concept of the ghost’s roll (the personality, the mind, etc.) in the mind/body is one of the few moment of Big Ideas the movie has. If your character barely acts human, that’s a problem.
The action scenes look good (except for one very unfortunately wall/balcony running shot that looks as bad as the Halle Berry Catwoman movie) and are filmed well enough but they never really go anywhere. They need feel energized or thrilling. They aren’t incompetently shot and maybe it’s just dull characters and plot that get in the way.
The movie does look great at least. No faulting the cinematography or most of the special fx. The city looks cool, the costumes are good, and the robot effects are good – they spent their money well, I’ll give them that.
The philosophy and the thoughts the movie have are so surface level and short that calling this a remake of the original anime is a sad joke. The movie does pay lip-service to some simple concepts of the nature of consciousness – are we are actions or our memories – but it doesn’t have much to say and doesn’t spend much time saying it.
For fans of the anime, they do have some decent re-enactment of scenes from the original. Sometimes they are good, sometimes they should have been better, and sometimes they seem to only exist to remind you of the original movie. To assure you this is a remake since the story, otherwise, is not.
So, yeah, it’s not a terrible movie but its really disappointing. I did get bored here and there and I kept wishing I was enjoying myself more.
Score: 70