The one thing that I knew about this movie going into it was that it had very good aesthetics, and that it was on the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 level of prettiness. I guess you could say that I also knew that it starred Scarlett Johansson, although that wasn't really a selling point for me. Actually, that was a point against it, because it made me think that it would be a lot like Luc Besson's dumb Lucy movie. I enjoyed Lucy, but I didn't want a retread of that.
Now that I've seen it, I can say that it isn't quite as psychedelic or as shallow as Lucy. The science is a little more believable, the themes a little deeper. Its editing and mood are significantly less eccentric. It has a very different story, although like Lucy, I wouldn't say that it's a significantly innovative one in the history of Western cinema.
What I can say is that this was based off of an anime of the same name. I don't go out of my way to watch anime, or to read manga, but I'm familiar enough with the genre to say that Ghost in the Shell is very loyal to the storytelling style of Eastern anime. Its mood and atmosphere, its directing, its character types, and its story all feel like something that would specifically come from an anime. In that sense, if it wasn't for the casting, this is probably as good as any live action adaptation of an anime is going to get for a while. People who like the feel of anime will get something out of this.
By Western standards, this isn't the greatest movie. I've seen themes of humanity and robotic played out many times in anime, and that genre has a unique way of going about it, which I can't really describe in words. It's just one of those things that I know when I see it. There's usually something moody about it. In any case, Ghost in the Shell goes through some generic themes that movies have tread over many times before, namely "Humanity good, robotics insufficient," and "Corporations are all like Weyland-Yutani and will sacrifice a ton of innocent lives in order to make a profit." Nothing new here, nothing that is going to cause someone to think, and ultimately the story seems inconsequential.
The characters are also a bit generic. They are well defined in the sense that you understand immediately what archetype they belong to, but that's all they are, archetypes. I actually don't have anything against that form of storytelling. Sometimes an archetype is all that you need. I just don't want people hoping that the characters will have more depth than that. They exist to pull you into the atmosphere of the movie, not to get you invested in them themselves.
The one area where the movie succeeds it that it is indeed very well directed. Rupert Sanders, for an Englishman, has a good instinct for what feels right for Anime. His editing, pacing, and atmosphere are all solid. He makes the world seem very real, and establishes rules for the world that, like everything else, contribute to this movie functioning as a live-action anime. He has a very good grasp on what this film is. Above all, he has a sense for visuals.
I heard good things about this film, visually. Someone even said that it was the prettiest film she had ever seen. I went in with high expectations. I wasn't disappointed, but as a point of fact I have seen prettier films this year, namely La La Land and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. I can't say that every single shot in this movie is a masterpiece. Personally, I think that the movie is the most beautiful during the opening credits. The colors and the subjects were captivating and pulled me in, and I was hoping for the rest of the movie to be like that. The rest of the movie didn't quite live up to the hypnotizing concept art of the opening, but still managed to look very attractive overall. I won't say that it is one of the most beautiful films of the ages, but its cinematography is still a notch above the style of other science fiction and action movies, and while I don't think that every film can be as beautiful as, say, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 because I have realistic expectations, I do think that blockbusters can realistically aspire to be as good-looking as Ghost in the Shell.
There are two final things that must be said about how loyal this movie is to its anime roots. No review of Ghost in the Shell is complete without wagging a finger at it and tut-tutting it for casting a white actress, Scarlett Johansson, to play a Japanese character. That really isn't right. Of course, the blame doesn't land squarely on the film makers. It falls on us as well, since the movie American audiences haven't turned out in droves to make any specific Japanese or Japanese-American actress marketable. The only way that this was going to get a budget and make money was if it had a famous actress at the helm, and if there were any popular Japanese actresses in America, I think that the creative team would have gladly cast her. Tao Okamoto would have been a good fit for the role, for example, but American audiences don't know who she is, and just because she wasn't in it, that suddenly makes me a fan of her, because now I want to see her in more things. I swear, I'm going to start bringing her up more often, just to bring about awareness of her so that she just might become popular one day in America, and then we won't have to cast white actresses for Japanese roles anymore. Outside of the main character, though, the movie had no excuse. There movie was populated with white actors, none of which were played by people who would have made any difference in the box office, and there was really only one Japanese actor in the entire main cast. It was a travesty.
But that leads me to something amazing which this will will forever impress me. "Beat" Takeshi Kitano is famous in Japan, and he played Daisuke Aramaki. I mentioned that all of the characters were basic archetypes, but some of them legitimately did charm me. If you're going to have basic character "types" in place of fully developed characters, they might as well be likable. And so was Daisuke Aramaki. Beat played him well, and what truly blew me away was that this old businessman had flamboyant live-action anime hair...and actually pulled it off. I never thought that it could be done, but my hat is off to this film. Of all of the movie's beautiful visuals, none blow me away quite as much as this guy's hair. It's magnificent. I love it.
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