Movie Review - Ghost In The Shell [Live-Action]

Ghost In The Shell

2017

Paramount Pictures / DreamWorks / Reliance Entertainment / Shanghai Film Group/ Huahua Media / Arad Productions / Steven Paul Production / Amblin Partners / Grosvenor Park Productions / Seaside Entertainment / Weying Galaxy Entertainment

Paramount Pictures

4 / 10

There's a problem with re-filming classic and iconic movies and that is perception.  This film fails mostly due to the writers and directors not knowing what they wanted from this movie.  They had a massive budget to craft and create a beautiful and thought-provoking piece of art.  Was the estimated $110,000,000 worth it... NO!  Not one penny of it.

The writers strangely opted to not tell the original story but to create a mish-mash of the Original 1995 Ghost In The Shell Movie and the Second Gig of the 2004 Series, along with the Basset Hound from the less-than-stellar Ghost In The Shell II: Innocence and make it a 12a Certificate (WHY?).  Unfortunately by doing this the messages which the originals gave the audience is lost.  In fact, the idea of "The Ghost" is so heavy-handedly hammered into you I thought I might need a doctor.  If the writers, Jamie Moss, William Wheeler, and Ehren Kruger couldn't come up with a decent original story based on the G.I.T.S. Universe than a straight forward remake would have been better.  To be honest, now that A.I.'s are closer than ever the original story would have been more poignant.

As for the direction, this was lazy, to say the least as director, Rupert Sanders copies some scenes and mixes others together.  All the original shots within the film are pretty unimpressive.

I also hope that the acting and characterisations of the cast were down to Sanders vision of the movie as most of them put in sub-standard portrayals.  The worst of which is Takeshi Kitano who plays Section 9's leader Aramaki.  This character is wily like a fox, though does show quite a bit of emotion on his face and in his voice.  Kitano just feels like he turned up, said his lines, then went home.  It's such a lacklustre appearance that in some scenes I thought Sanders had just inserted a still shot and dubbed the speech over.  As for Scarlett Johansson their's nowhere near enough presence or assurance in her portrayal of the major.  For most of the scenes, she skulks around with her head down.  This is a strong and assured character.  Bad guys and people, in general, should be weary of her.  This could be down to the butchering of her backstory that Moss, Wheeler, and Kruger did.  Not only does it lessen the character but is nonsensical and quite stupid.  The only one who comes out of this film looking good is Pilou Asbaek as his Batou was pretty decent, though the writers again messed up a solid backstory - though not so bad this time.

As for the special effects and CGI, these were okay, though not too impressive.  However, the Geisha sequence is really good, as is the arm tearing sequence, and I really like the doctor's eyes and the PA's fingers.which kept in with the original.  Though the fight sequences were a little strange.  In the Geisha fight scene, the Major hangs too long in the air; then in the Bin-Man Puppet fight there are times when his movement through the air doesn't look right, it's as if the harness wasn't working right and they were pushed for time...  The worst thing though is the streets.  I don't mind that they are garishly lit, as this may be the case, it's the huge holographic people throughout.  This wouldn't be too bad if you can figure out what they were selling but they just appear to be people doing... well, not much at all, really.

Since the original films are still available I would strongly recommend you watch them instead of this.  Even Innocence, which is the weakest of the series, is much stronger in story and characterisation.  However, if you still haven't watched the original, why not?  Find yourself a copy, it is a beautiful and intelligent movie.  Something this should have been.  I cannot understand why they did this to something that was so good, to begin with.  Do they know that the saying isn't "If it ain't broke... BREAK IT!"  Well, it goes to show that it doesn't matter how much money you throw at something... if the talent isn't there, or it isn't used to it's fullest potential, then you will usually get a pile of...