Similar Beats, Different Drum
Cast: Scarlett Johanssen, Pilou Asbæk, Juliette Binoche, Michael Pitt, Chin Han, Lasarus Rateure, Sanusia Samai, Tawanda Manyimo, Peter Ferdinando, Takeshi Kitano
Director: Rupert Sanders
Synopsis: In the near future, Major 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.
Review:
Anime has been successful when filmed in live action and thrust into North American theaters. And by “successful”, I mean “horrible wreck involving two trains carrying armed nuclear weapons and nitroglycerine.” Everyone knows the horror of Dragonball. Evolution, right? Well, anyone who has seen the live-action version of The Guyver, or Fist of the North Star will consider Dragonball: Evolution worthy of an Oscar.
Into this miasma of broken anime hearts lands Ghost in the Shell. Not only did Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks decide to throw their hat into this frightening ring, they were tackling an anime classic. The results, while not especially noteworthy, are worthy of some praise.
I went to see an advance screening of Ghost in the Shell with Punisher, my Digital Crack podcast mate. He has never seen the original movie and has a limited anime palette (i.e. Dragonball Z). In his defense, he remembers Voltron and The Big O. He knows some stuff.
Punisher committed a few words about his impressions of Ghost in the Shell to writing. He also asked a few friends who went with us to give their impressions. Here’s their take.
Punisher
Video Editor/Podcast Personality
This movie was great! I had never seen the anime movies for Ghost in the Shell, but this movie was just great. At first, I felt like the movie started slow – even confusing – but as the movie kept going into depth, I understood everything about it. The story alone was good enough and the impact was big. I enjoyed watching Scarlet Johansson as Major in this movie and how she prorated her role. Pilou Asbæk as Batou was great. I was telling Uncle Willy that he looks just like Kiefer Sutherland from The Lost Boys.
After the movie was over, I had an absolute pleasure interviewing some friends new to Digital Crack about Ghost in the Shell.
Miguel Portu Said: The movie was good! They really got both movies and put them into this film and to see it come to life was great. But you need to see both Ghost in the Shell movies to have a better understanding of the film.
Isabelle Scott Said: It was good! Graphics amazing. Anime is a lil’ darker and edgier in my opinion.
Yusuf Daza said: My Rating: 8.5/10 – The director and the producers knew what they were doing. Very faithful to the two films, especially the first film in recreating the scenes, but of course with a different way to tell the story. I can see a sequel based on Stand Alone Complex if they want to. And Johanssen did a good job, too!
The only concern is this film is a little bit less dark than the original one.
Danielle Glunt Said: I really never seen the two movies, but this movie was amazing! I like the dark tones of the movie and how everything just changes.
I want to give special thanks to these great people for sharing their thoughts about this movie.
Next week I going to see the new Transformers movie. Hope you all are ready for that review.
Mixed Bag
As for my stance on it, it’s a bit convoluted. It added new wrinkles that fleshed out some parts well but dumbed down the core elements that made Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 anime so seminal. I will do my best to avoid spoilers for the movie, although it does resemble the 1995 anime in enough ways to eschew the spoiler warning.
The story of Ghost in the Shell centers on The Major (Scarlett Johanssen). She is a cyborg (her shell) with a human mind (the Ghost). Originally a human rescued from near-death with almost no memory, her mind is placed in an artificial body as an experiment. After her creation, she is placed in Section 9, a sort of paramilitary police force. Although she takes to her role well, strange glitches in her memory haunt her. Those glitches make her doubt her existence and wonder about her life before her ghost was placed inside her new shell.
The first thing that hits you about the movie is its visuals. Director Rupert Sanders and his team put some serious effort to recreate New Port City, the movie’s location. The results are pretty amazing. Whenever the camera swept over the city, I got a vibe of Ghost in the Shell-meets-Blade Runner. The Blade Runner and The Matrix vibes are present throughout. That’s not a coincidence. The Wachowskis credited the original Ghost in the Shell as the main inspiration for the Matrix trilogy.
The story is actually a mish-mash of the first two Ghost in the Shell movies and the Stand Alone Complex OVA series. Gone is the original’s antagonist, the Puppet Master, replaced with Kuze (Michael Pitt). It was here that the movie had its first real misfire. Kuze wasn’t a terrible foil per se. But his story is much less interesting than The Puppet Master, a being that was actually born in the network. Kuze is representative of the way the story was dumbed down from the original, containing some clichéd plot twists that jarred me.
As by-the-numbers as The Major’s story ends up being, Johanssen did quite well in the role. She did not mimic the almost doll-like, vacant stare of Motoko in the original, but it would be unfair to hold her up to that. Otherwise, she acquits herself well. She’s proven she can play the role of action badass already, and here she shows some depth.
Her supporting cast delivers as well. Her Section 9 teammate Batou (Pilou Asbæk) is great, as is Section 9 chief Aramaki (“Beat” Takeshi Kitano). Kuze was interesting despite his otherwise weak story, his speech reminding me of a Max Headroom reject. The Major’s creator, Dr. Ouelet (Juliette Binoche) adds needed emotion to The Major’s story.
The movie also took great pains to recreate scenes from the original source material here. The fight between Major and a hacked thug in the slightly flooded slums and the scene with Major in the water are almost shot-for-shot scenes from the movies and OVA series. The geisha dinner scene in the beginning is a mash-up of the geisha dinner scene in Stand Alone Complex and the building jump from Ghost in the Shell. The scenes add to the story while giving fans of the source material a good grounding point.
Those same fans, however, are bound to be disappointed with the story. Though engaging, it lacks many of the deeper points from the original’s story. While The Major is still conflicted here, her conflict is overly simplified compared to Motoko’s struggle. Motoko’s arc is one of the elements that gave the original movie strong appeal. In this iteration, her struggle is made slightly more pedestrian, lacking any deeper meaning other than, “who am I?” To me, that’s a missed opportunity.
Thankfully, that doesn’t detract too much from the movie. For all my minor bitching about the differences, some of them do well. Some parts, like how Batou got his enhanced eyes, are welcome. Others, like the deeper meaning of body enhancements and the resultant loss of humanity, play differently but still have weight. And nice little touches like Batou’s love of stray dogs – a callback to his love of basset hounds in Ghost in the Shell 2 Innocence – give the movie familiarity to fans.
Overall, I have to admit I enjoy Ghost in the Shell. It’s not perfect, but considering how other live-action adaptations like Speed Racer and Kite were ruined, I’ll take this in a heartbeat. With other live-action adaptations of anime like Lone Wolf and Cub and Death Note on the horizon, there’s plenty to be afraid of. This movie, however, is a flawed but fun watch.
Good: Dazzling visual effects; (mostly) engaging story; good fight choreography
Bad: Loses some of the original’s magic; Major’s inner conflict dumbed down; almost by-the-numbers plot elements
Verdict: 7 out of 10
