Review – Ghost in the Shell

I never really got into anime.  I’ve dabbled in some Dragonball Z and seen some Hayao Miyazaki films, but that’s really it.  I’ve heard of the beloved titles, like Akira and Cowboy Bebop, but again, never watched them.  I heard about Ghost in the Shell and knew that it was one of the most beloved anime’s out there.  No anime had been adapted into a live-action American film since the debacle that was Dragonball: Evolution (2009), so this was quite a gamble to make Ghost in the Shell, particularly with casting Scarlett Johansson as the lead character.

Now Ghost in the Shell isn’t nearly as horrible as Dragonball: Evolution, but it doesn’t bode well for the future of anime-adaptations, as this is a dull, misguided sci-fi film that falls victim to studio greed.

In the near future, Major (Scarlett Johansson) 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. When terrorism reaches a new level that includes the ability to hack into people’s minds and control them, Major is uniquely qualified to stop it. As she prepares to face a new enemy, Major discovers that she has been lied to: her life was not saved, it was stolen. She will stop at nothing to recover her past, find out who did this to her and stop them before they do it to others.

The biggest controversy surrounding this film before its release was the casting of Scarlett Johansson.  The main character in the original Ghost in the Shell is an Asian woman and Johansson is, well, not.  Technically, in terms of the movie, this shouldn’t have been an issue, as the “shell” can realistically be any race, not just specifically Asian, so the whitewashing didn’t bother so much here.  I can’t tell if Johansson’s performance is a stilted or good.  She really owns the whole robotic thing, walking with a stiff purpose and being relatively emotionless, but the performance still felt flat, especially compared to other robotic performances, like Michael Fassbender in Prometheus (2012).  So it isn’t so much the whitewashing that is a problem, it’s the overall performance that should be criticized.

One performance I did like in the film was from Michael Pitt as Kuze.  Kuze is a failed version of Major, causing him to look like Terminator with his skin ripped off.  Even though Pitt sounds like his doing an impersonation of Stephen Hawking, he is incredibly haunting and really adds a creepiness and a much needed emotional complexity.

The entire time watching this movie, I kept thinking an R-rating would have helped it greatly, as would of a better director.  The atmosphere, futuristic grunginess, and grit would have been perfect for someone like Terry Gilliam, who has dealt with gritty sci-fi before in 12 Monkeys (1995).  I think if Gilliam was at the helm, it would have been darker, more violent, and weirder, which would have made up for the bizarre, uneven story that starts off as the same plot as The Riddler in Batman Forever (1995), where someone is taking the contents of people’s minds, and then switches to a police corruption story.  The story didn’t work and neither did the tone.

Ghost in the Shell is just an unpleasant movie-going experience.  It’s bland, boring, visually underwhelming, and features one decent performance.  This does not look good for the future of live-action anime adaptations.

MY RATING – 1/4

Did you see Ghost in the Shell?  What did you think?  Comment below or hit me up on Twitter and Instagram, @kevflix, or on Facebook by searching Kevflix.