In the near future, a young woman is pulled from a crash and saved through cyber-enhancements with only her brain surviving the process. A ghost is what inhabits the body when there is nothing human left. She has been trained to be the perfect soldier for Section 9 and uses her new body to its fullest to get the job done. While on a mission to stop a deadly cyber terrorist, Major discovers that all may not be what it seems.
Rupert Sanders directs with but one semi successful film under his belt, Snow White and the Huntsman. He was criticized for white washing characters in his Ghost in the Shell adaptation, but I really didn't find any issue with it. There is a very Japanese core to GITS, after all, the shell is just a fabricated body of no real ethnicity. Her character is ambiguous and the fact that she isn't played Japanese is completely irrelevant. Major's ghost is Motoko Kusanagi who is of Japanese descent, but her body is cyborg. Anyways, there have been cases of white washing in the film industry, but this isn't one of them, and its a shame the film suffered so much negative press about it. Good or bad, Scarlett Johannson looked the role. That aside, for his second big feature, Sanders does a pretty damn good job handling such a treasured piece of anime history.
I went into Ghost in the Shell with fairly high hopes of it being good, not caring if it really stuck true to the anime or not. I just really wanted it to be good. Shirow Masamune has done some amazing manga which was the source of some fantastic animated features back in the 80s and 90s, way back when I was knee deep into anime (I would love to see a live action Black Magic M-66), and I wanted to see his character done justice. Scarlett Johansson does a very competent job with the character, with some scenes looking like they were pulled right from the anime. The Geisha scene from Stand Alone Complex was a key selling point in the trailers attesting how good the film was gonna look. Also, the final battle with the spider tank is pretty damn awesome, and with the exception of a few minor changes, pretty friggin' faithful! The look and feel of Major's character is pretty solid, but I found some of the performances a little stiff, possibly a side effect of the real world colliding with the CG world, moreso with casual Major and Batou scenes. Some of their walking scenes just felt unnatural and a little jarring. Pilou Asbæk as Batou was kind of a mixed bag. Some scenes I was like yeah man, kick ass... while other scenes he projects this oafish quality that kind of pulls his character down a bit. I however loved Takeshi Kitano (Zatoichi) as Aramaki. Most if not all of his scenes were subtitled, but he was easily one of the most believable and enjoyable characters in the film, even if they were smaller parts. Unfortunately, Ghost in the Shell fails to attach any depth to other members of Section 9. They have very minor appearances, which feels somewhat hollow, and I would have liked to see just a little more development there.
A side thought.... So the film has two villains, and I'm kinda going into spoiler material here. The main villain being the cyber terrorist Kuze, who I felt was very well fleshed out and actually handled effectively. Then there was Cutter the head of the robotics company owning the Major and responsible for cutting edge military advancements used by Section 9. I couldn't help but draw comparisons to the Verhoeven '97 classic Robocop. Cutter and Dick Jones of OCP, the robotics company responsible for military weaponry including Robocop, were almost identical characters, and when you think about it, Robocop probably borrowed a lot from Ghost in the Shell. I'd be very surprised if that comparison hadn't been made before.
Visually is where Ghost in the Shell really wins! The trailers alone spoke volumes as to how faithful this project has been. There is so much eye candy on the screen that keeps you engaged from beginning to end... even when the pacing dips. This futuristic Japan is depicted with so much flair, holograms popping from every building, fish swimming the sidewalks, and technological gadgets and coolness at every turn. The underbelly and outskirts of this utopia contrast beautifully with dilapidated structures and grimy dungeonesque corridors hiding Japan's deeper darker secrets. The visual FX team did a fantastic job capturing the essence of the anime.
One of my bigger issues though, and this has always played a key role in film for me, was the scoring. Utterly forgettable. It's not that it was bad. It's just nothing stood out. Key scenes could have been elevated with a better score, which can usually give an emotional push to an otherwise cookie cutter action scene. there was definitely some wasted potential here.
Overall, sure, there are things that could have been done better, but really, this is probably one of the best anime to film adaptations I've seen yet. It's not gonna set any new box office records, nor do I think it's gonna be in the theaters for very long, but I had a good time with it and would highly recommend it to any fan of the anime, or even sci fi in general.
If you like the movie, I strongly urge you to seek out the animated movies, and also the 2 seasons of Standalone Complex which are fantastic!
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