Sci-fi excellence doesn’t come along very often and while the Hollywood adaptation of Manga classic, Ghost In The Shell, gets close at times, it doesn’t quite manage to strike all the right keys in the end. Having Scarlet Johansson (Captain America: Civil War) in the lead role may not be 100% on the nose with the film’s origins, but she does a very good job of bringing the main character to the big screen, but ultimately the film is let down slightly by a few story and character development issues that really should have been fixed.
All in all the story does well to stay close to the original comics and cartoon films, starting out with the Major (Johansson) as she is first revived as a cybernetic body with a human brain. It jumps forward one year as she’s in action instantly with the counter cyber-terrorist unit, Section 9, in a big to stop an attack on high level scientist at Hanka Robotics, the company that created her new existence.
The doubts about the film don’t really start to creep in until it gets into the final third as the pace picks up again after a slightly elongated lull, which could have been edited back by at least ten minutes or so. It’s at this stage that the development of the plot starts to come undone a little at the fringes as it bounces a little from moment to moment without giving a strong pull to it all to make it come together well. One moment the Major is caressing the face of what you’re led to believe is a lady of the night and the next she’s out at sea diving in the cold to escape from it all. The truth about her past doesn’t land as effectively as it could, which doesn’t help with building a connection between you and the Major as her humanity comes to light.
However, the single biggest failing for us is the complete lack of character development or rationale for Mr. Cutter, the head of Hanka Robotics. There is no word on why he’s doing what he’s doing or what drives him, nor is there any plausible explanation for the level of personal effort he puts in on the ground. He’s a senior executive in a big business, but for some reason he’s seen scrambling in the mud taking prisoners in the lawless zone and piloting spider tanks, which really should be a job for his general or something similar.
He’s played by Peter Ferdinando (Snow White And The Huntsman), who doesn’t do a bad job of playing the ruthless company man, it’s more that he was let down by the part he was tasked to play without being given the lines to play it effectively. Luckily, though, Scarlett Johansson is strong enough in the lead role to compensate a little for the emptiness at the business end of the story development and with the addition of Michael Pitt (Criminal), who puts in a powerful performance as cyber-terrorist Kuze, there are more than enough positives to keep you on the end of the line. It’s a shame his foresight, planning and power lines go missing entirely in the final sequences, but that aside he’s very good in the role.
The rest of the cast is a mixed bag at times with quiet strength from Takeshi Kitano as Chief Daisuke Aramaki, but forced gruffness from Pilou Asbæk (Ben Hur (2016)) as Batou. Chin Han (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) does well to give a new take on Togusa and Juliette Binoche (Godzilla (2014)) plays Dr. Ouélet with a great range of subtlety and understanding.
Visually, Ghost In The Shell is brilliantly realised for the most part, delivering an incredible futuristic reality, as well as the stunning fight sequences that we’d been hoping for. The quality of the work is almost impossible to fault, especially when the Major’s cloaking capabilities kick in for a battle in the middle of a patch of water.
Some of the scenes in the film are incredible, like the Geisha attack sequences towards the beginning of the film, but others fail by trying too hard, whether it’s an overly heroic pose or an overblown CGI effect that cracks the screen of excellence that usually dominates the film. It’s not just the special effects that we’d be inclined to praise and criticise in equal amounts, as its a similar story for the cinematography by director of photography, Jess Hall. A lot of the shots are brilliants crafted and composed with just the right perspective to blow your mind a little, but then it can all go down the drain with fleeting moments of trying just a little too hard.
Morality is another issue it struggles to get to grips with. It questions technology and its increasing presence in our lives, looking at it from the extremes of a high-tech future, but it also seems to embrace it, even if it has obviously negative connotations. Batou getting fitted with x-ray vision gets passed off as being kind of cool, despite the fact that it gave him the ability to invade privacy. There’s also a rough justice take on policing that leaves the end of the film with a bit of a bad taste. It felt like a moment for humanity to take over in the film, but instead we get a very hard line that doesn’t sit well.
Ghost In The Shell (2017) is a film that got close to sci-fi perfection, but not close enough, or certainly not consistently enough for it to carry through the entire film. It has a lot of positives, not least of all Scarlett Johansson and Michael Pitt’s performances in the lead roles, but there are too many glitches for it to impress as much as we were hoping it would.
Ghost In The Shell (2017) review: 3.8/5
