Ghost In The Shell (2017) – Overview/ Review (with Spoilers)

You know, considering I watched the anime and, outside of maybe Pan, no movie with a whitewashing controversy has been good, I should have probably skipped this. Well, let me warn you so you don’t waste however much it costs in your area.

Characters & Storyline

In the future, when giant advertisements make it so even the rich can’t have beautiful and scenic views, a woman commonly known as Major (Scarlett Johansson) is part of a special task force which keeps the peace. This woman though isn’t like her peers in Section 9. While augmentation has become common, she is on a completely different level for it wasn’t an organ or one part of her body replaced, it was everything but her brain. Yet, despite taking her medicine and doing as Dr. Ouelet (Juliette Binoche) has told her to do, there are phantom memories. Things which can’t be determined as either glitches or memories from Major’s past life. But, as she finds herself on a case which has her hunting this being name Kuze (Michael Pitt), it seems she no longer has the option or ability to ignore these glitches. For they may very well reveal the truth about her past.

Highlights

In Terms of The Technology and Sci-Fi Elements, It is Kind of Cool

While it seems everything mostly is CGI and perhaps green screen, versus how the better Star Wars films handle a futuristic world, it is hard to not be in awe of what you see. Now, being that I refuse to pay $20+ for an IMAX ticket, I will admit you probably don’t get the full experience of this beautiful dystopian-ish world. However, it does lead you to hope as virtual reality gets better and cheaper, and as both video games and perhaps films take advantage of it, we may one day get to visit worlds like the one Major is in.

Criticism

There is No Style Nor Substance

With Marvel dominating the action genre, and most action films avoiding becoming too serious and heavy, it makes any action film which wants to actually have depth a welcome change. Heck, that is part of the reason Logan is being taken so well to. However, with Ghost in the Shell, you don’t get hardly a damn thing worth noting in any of the genres it touches on.

In terms of action, the gun fights and hand to hand combat is all uninspiring. For despite what we’ve seen Scarlett Johansson attached to with Lucy and her work in the Marvel films, her fight scenes are neither choreographed to be epic nor contain that one noteworthy moment which is jaw dropping. Then when it comes to all the people who are cybernetically enhanced or robots, they also don’t participate in awe-inspiring battle sequences. Heck, even while part of the praise is about how cool the technology looks, sometimes it does seem the movie is recycling stuff we saw back in the 90s, when the animated movie was released and isn’t even trying to compete with what has come out in modern times.

Leading to the crime and drama element. Let’s be frank, it has been a long time since Johansson could have been considered any sort of serious actress. So her being in a movie where she isn’t cracking jokes, isn’t playing off of well-seasoned actors who vibe well with her, that is a problem. If only because she has no one to feed or play off of and it shows in this film that she desperately needs that. Otherwise, that certain something which has made her a star isn’t ignited. Instead, it makes it seem she is just trying to maintain her crown as one of the top action heroines in modern times.

Overall: Negative (Skip It)

This film represents the classic case of when Hollywood catches onto a foreign property long after said property peaked and they try to cash in on it. Mind you, they don’t do so by trying to make something which more closely mirrors the source material or even allow the writer to maybe reimagine a few things. Fix what they perhaps, in retrospect, think could have been better. Nope. All you’ll see with this film is Johansson in some ugly bodysuit and her being in the type of action scenes which almost lead you to believe that her stunt double is saving their energy for their next Marvel outing. Especially so they don’t end up losing out on a major paycheck getting injured while in this.

Thus why this is being labeled Negative. While you may appreciate how beautiful the scenery sometimes is, Johansson brings absolutely nothing to Major which can be considered noteworthy. She doesn’t bring some sort of awkward jokes, charm, or even some sense of Major being a bad ass. All we get is a deer in the headlights stare and some feeble attempt at trying to attract you to Major’s story. Something which Johansson fails to do since, without the ability to use her fellow actor as a crutch, until she gets into the swing of things, she just consistently falls flat. Leading you to check the time ever 15-20 minutes wondering if the movie is over yet. That is if you don’t end up falling asleep.