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'Ghost In The Shell’ A mediocre cyborg flick with gorgeous visuals
Bring it on: The Major (Scarlett Johansson) and the hacker Kuze (Michael Pitt) face off in a scene from Ghost in the ShellExcellent visualization and Scarlett Johansson’s skintight costume in almost every action scene makes Ghost in the Shell a perfect guilty pleasure popcorn flick
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Bring it on: The Major (Scarlett Johansson) and the hacker Kuze (Michael Pitt) face off in a scene from Ghost in the Shell
Excellent visualization and Scarlett Johansson’s skintight costume in almost every action scene makes Ghost in the Shell a perfect guilty pleasure popcorn flick.
Adapted from a classic Japanese manga of the same title, Scarlett Johansson’s casting as Ghost in the Shell’s main character, The Major, by director Rupert Sanders initially sparked worldwide opposition from Japanese manga fans who believed that the casting was Hollywood’s way of whitewashing because the character was originally of Asian descent.
While manga purists might not be satisfied with the casting decision, it is safe to say the general audience might have no problem when they watch Johansson play the role of The Major.
In a dystopian time set in Japan, The Major is the first of its kind; a cyborg with a synthetic body but with a real human brain transplanted in it.
In that universe, technology has become so intertwined with human life that people regularly upgrade themselves by installing machinery into their organs to either make them live longer or function better.
The Major, on the other hand, is a machine with a real human brain. This makes the character unique because it is both a robot and a woman. Inside the shell of its synthetic body lies a real human ghost or soul.
The doctor who created The Major, Ouélet (Juliette Binoche), explains that the cyborg was once an immigrant looking for salvation in Japan, but her ship sunk and the only thing that could be salvaged from her was her brain.
A year after the creation, the cyborg leads a strike team of an anti-cyber crime unit called Section 9. During one of the team’s missions, The Major learns that an entity identified as Kuze (Michael Pitt) has been hacking into the brains of top ranking executives of Hanka Robotics, the company that created her, and then killing them.
The Major’s investigation into the matter then leads her to question everything about what she has been told about her past. She also uncovers an inhumane scheme of next generation robotics warfare formulated by people whom she initially thought she could trust.
The villain: Mysterious and highly skilled hacker Kuze is on the warpath against the state-of-the-art robotics corporation Hanka.
The story of a cyborg grappling with humanity and soul is nothing new. Films like The Terminator series, Bicentennial Man and I, Robot all focused on this kind of story and unfortunately, Ghost in the Shell fails to be as satisfying as those that came before it.
There is simply not enough depth in the story to make the audience fully engage with The Major and her inner conflict and confusion about what she really is.
The lack of depth in storytelling, however, is compensated by Sanders’ ability to beautifully craft the visualizations of the Ghost in the Shell universe.
Dystopian Japan looks so fun to watch with its majestic skyscrapers, video-game like interactive highways and momentous gigantic holographic advertisements. It is shiny yet at the same time carries within itself a certain dark and gritty aura of a society finding itself becoming even more trapped by its pseudo-advancement.
And then of course, the strong performance by Johansson in terms of both acting and visualization are such a feast for those who appreciate strength and beauty.
When The Major is set to fight, Johansson takes off her jacket and behold, there she is in an ultra-tight skin-colored synthetic shell jumping around shooting and kicking the enemy. At times, it feels like manga porn but it is also very artistically violent and majestic.
Other characters in the movie are not strong enough to be memorable. Batou (Pilou Asbæk), The Major’s sidekick, is bad-ass looking technologically enhanced soldier with a gentle heart, but apart from some scenes of him feeding stray dogs, this character is not developed well.
Kuze, as such an important part in The Major’s pivotal moment of finding her true self, is not sold enough in the script.
The only remaining character who can match Johansson’s charisma is Aramaki (Takeshi Kitano), who is The Major’s superior in Section 9. Kitano, despite only having several minutes of screen time, makes the best of his time to portray an old yet cunning anti-terrorist group leader.
For what it is worth, Ghost in The Shell is a so-so movie that allows you to enjoy breathtaking visual effects.
— Photos by Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
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Ghost in the Shell
(Paramount Pictures, 106 minutes)
Director: Rupert Sanders
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Juliette Binoche, Michael Pitt, Takeshi Kitano
