IMPORTANT NOTE #1:

Despite watching this movie, I have never read/watched any of the other Ghost in the Shell manga/animated movie/anime prior to the viewing of this movie. However, this was partially deliberate, as I wanted to observe the film on its own merits, and not let feelings about the original potentially mar any aspects that stand on their own. So don’t expect my review to be based on how it holds up to the original. After this, I do plan on getting into the GitS franchise; when I do, I may do a retrospective review of this film, so that I will be able to cover both opinions.

IMPORTANT NOTE #2:

I WILL NOT make any comment about the racial controversy surrounding this film. As far as I believe, the film should be judged on its own merits before external factors come in. Don’t expect me to hate or praise the film because Scarlet Johanssen played the Major.

1984 + The Bourne Ultimatum + Blade Runner + the director of Snow White and the Huntsman = Ghost in the Shell (2017).

I have heard so many times about how classic Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell is that I’m almost sick of it at this point. Regarded as a hallmark in Japanese anime, it is a holy bible of animated films at this point. I’ve never actually seen it, but I’ve heard many stories about its complex characters, deep philosophical questions that give The Matrix a run for its money, and a compelling cyberpunk world.

However, because I never saw it, I didn’t have the same motivation to go see this 2017 live-action adaptation by Rupert Sanders. Even when people were fighting on internet forums about how this film could suck, I didn’t particularly feel compelled to join. Yet I still put it on my watch list, because what I saw in the trailers seemed like an intriguing, visually compelling film on its own. So, what did I think of the film that so many though was going to crash and burn?

…surprisingly, there were many things that were genuinely great.

The premise is this; in the not too distant future, mankind has combined themselves with cybernetic enhancements, blurring the line between human and machine. The Major, played by Scarlett Johanssen, is one of the most advanced cyborgs, and belongs to Section 9, where she and a group of other elites fight cyberterrorism. Their latest target is the enigmatic Kuze, who is inexplicably targeting Hanka robotics’ artificial intelligence technology.

So first of all, the visuals? Absolutely incredible. Even though I can’t compare it to the animated movie, I still couldn’t help but feast my eyes on the landscapes and the design of the characters, which showcased a level of creativity not even seen in Doctor Strange. Every scene in this movie is a sheer spectacle, each drawing the viewer closer and closer into the world of Ghost in the Shell; digital koi swim graciously around buildings; bizarre cybernetic body parts attach seamlessly to people; the Major is born through various processing. All of them combine to make this the most visually compelling movie of 2017.

The action? Pretty good as well. The film starts off with the iconic shot of the Major leaping off of the skyscraper, and what follows after is quite exhilarating to see as well. The rest of the action, which still a fairly standard gunfight, is backed up by the strong visuals mentioned previously. And the climax definitely has both weight and destruction, and serves to cement the Major as a complete badass in my books.

How about the acting? That was very good as well. While I can’t say how she does at portraying the character of the original Motoko Kusanagi, I can say that she creates a compelling character on her own. She is often lost between her past and present, human and machine, and Johanssen depicts that wonderfully, creating a cyborg that shows its ghost while still maintaining the shell. The rest of the cast play their part well enough, and none of them really feel like they don’t belong.

So far, the visuals have been fantastic, the action is kinetic, and is backed up by solid acting. So this film would be an instant must-see, right?

You all know where this is going – no, it is not. Despite its strong points, Ghost in the Shell is bogged down by the most fundamental aspects of any movie, or any story for that matter; the story and characters.

It’s not like the story is terrible. It does throw out some legitimate debates about what truly makes someone human, whether manufactured lives could still be considered real, and how we should view cyborgs as. However, all those points never really go anywhere, despite showing clear potential to elevate this film to a thematically deep level. Instead, the movie opts for style over substance, drawing the audience’s attention towards the dazzling effects onscreen while masking the half-baked philosophical questions that it tried to work with.

Even outside of that though, the plot itself is just…dull. It has some twists and turns, and one twist in particular about the Major’s true identity I thought was legitimately clever and deserving of praise. However, the pacing of the story is middling. There is hardly a sense of escalation; the film fails to get my blood pumping, draw me to the edge of my seat, instead opting for a drawn-out cat-and-mouse game between Section 9 and Kuze in the first half. The film starts to get better in the later half, where that one twist does open up new possibilities for deeper storytelling, but when it gets to the climax, while it delivers on the action, it also ends up feeling rather rushed, as plot points resolve themselves with almost comical simplicity.

Then there’s the characters, and where I think the movie failed the most. While the Major was acted well, her character itself is all over the place. During the first parts of the movie, the Major is shifting between the lines of human and machine, constantly questioning what it truly means to be human. Yet as the movie goes on, it completely throws it out and instead makes her essentially Jason Bourne, only she is hardly given enough development as the other elite agent who can’t remember his/her past. It jumbles what sort of person the Major is; is she calm? Is she insecure? Is she nostalgic? We never know, because the film never shows us properly.

The other characters feel like they are there simply for screen time fodder. Batou shows up the most and establishes himself as a close friend of the Major, but that’s it; he has no developments whatsoever through the film, remaining pretty much the same chill guy he was at the beginning of the movie. The rest of Section 9 is brutally underdeveloped, mainly because they have less than nine minutes of screen time. No time is given to any of the members, so we never really care about how they turn out in the film.

The villain does carry a compelling motive for his actions, and with a better script, I think he could have been truly a complex antithesis to the Major. But unfortunately, the movie quietly throws it away and goes for the usual corporate-is-evil cliche, and it dumbs down the movie immensely, which also made me even more disinterested in the finale despite the awesome tank battle.

Is Ghost in the Shell a better anime adaptation than most? Definitely, but that’s not saying much. And I am genuinely sad about this, because there was so much potential here; the cinematography was some of the best I’ve seen, the main lead was charismatic and had room for genuine development, and the world offered intriguing comments about the machine. But the unfocused and pedestrian narrative dumb it down to a just-average hollywood cyberpunk blockbuster. This film’s got a beautiful shell, but it ain’t got the ghost.

Final Verdict: C+

Ghost in the Shell proves that it has only yet scratched the surface of a dazzling world and intriguing characters – which means that it never reaches the depths where the true meat of the story lies.