Thursday 22 June 2017

Ghost in the Shell: The Scarlett Johansson Version

There must be no jails in the future, because Section 9 is all about killing.

Based on an anime of the same name this movie cherry picks a bunch of stories from the original content and mashes it up into one narrative, much like how the previously Asian protagonist is put back piecemeal with a pinch of amnesia into Scarlett Johansson. There are certainly worse bodies to get resurrected into!

I'm kinda glad none of the others wear a white, form squeezing body suit. :P

As expected from a GITS story it has a terrorist group, a corrupt company, a bunch of fight scenes and a lot of eye candy. I mean other eye candy, apart from Scarlett. Section 9 is well represented too, with a good choice for Batou, an almost cameo for Saitou and Togusa, and an elderly yet authoritative Aramaki. Who only speaks Japanese, while the rest of the cast speaks English. Yeah that did bug me a bit. The meshing of stories also made for some plot holes.

Also, by making trying to make this somewhat kid friendly by removing the gore and nudity (and blood) featured in the animated counterpart - it does make it fall short to GITS veterans. The futuristic capacity also had some ludicrous looking moments with things that don't translate well into real life. Keep your eyes open for people wearing ridiculous bubble helmets filled with ads. Even the opening surgical staff could probably not see where they were going at all.

So, not as entertaining as the originals but still worth a watch if nothing better is on. I give it 2.5 spider tanks out of 5. Would I watch it again? I'd probably give my consent, but not anytime soon.

2 comments:

  1. GITS never needed your consent!

    I'd heard of the anime, but never had seen it, so I went into the movie pretty much "cold."

    It was a nice diversion for the 2 hours, but as you say.... not again. At least, not anytime soon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the reply Magson! Clearly you were the intended audience for the movie, but given you had the same feelings about it as I did - I guess they didn't do such a good job. :P

      Delete