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Blu-ray Review: “Ghost In The Shell” Is Disjointed And Hard To Follow

[yasr_overall_rating]
 

In the near future, Major is the first of her kind: A human saved from a terrible crash, who is cyber-enhanced to be a perfect soldier devoted to stopping the world’s most dangerous criminals.

Imagine falling off out of a plane in the future and having no time to gather your bearings or even learn the names of the people around you. There, you have just experienced the feeling left behind from watching “Ghost in the Shell.” I watched past the first ten minutes out of morbid curiosity (and because I am a movie reviewer, it is my job to finish the whole movie before giving an opinion). The movie did not improve. You will say, “But it’s Scarlett Johansson. It cannot be that bad.” But it is that bad. She was that bad. If I were her, I would hang my head when people asked if I was in this film.

The hope is since this movie is based on a comic (of the same name), written by Shirow Masamunem, there is a dedicated audience out in the world, probably underground, who have enough context to understand this flick. Director Rupert Sanders must be a fan of the comic as he did not feel compelled to offer his viewers necessary plot details, instead, assuming people would be able to follow along with the muddled plot.

Major (Johansson) survived a terrible accident but not in one piece. Compliments of the government (this is one of those details not explained), Major receives an enhanced body, a shell, for her ghost, soul, to habitat. Not just any enhanced body, but a super machine body. Even better, she is a one of a kind. She is alone in having a human brain in a robot body. She was made for a purpose: to be a super cop to chase down cyber terrorists with her sidekick Batou. Pilou Asbaek plays Batou and bears a remarkable resemblance to Kiefer Sutherland, which just enhances the 1990s ambiance of the film as if “The Matrix” and the “Flatliners” had a weird futuristic baby. The dark and cold computer graphics, along with the retro cars fall flat of providing even a potentially realistic world. Back to Major.

A ghost in cyberspace starts to haunt Major, despite how much she already has on her plate. Trying to figure out her past and chase bad guys in the big cyber world is enough for any one person to handle. Major chases him down in spite of her busy agenda, and clues emerge that help her to understand her life in a machine is not what it seems. Hanka Corporation has their hands in every pot stirring up trouble as Major works to find her past and this mysterious man on her tail.

Major’s self-discovery fails to connect though because Johansson apparently believes since she is playing a brain living in a machine she can forget about acting and put on her monotone voice and persona. She chases down a bunch of bad guys in random disconnected scenes. Maybe this was an opportunity for the computer graphics teams to display their ability to look both futurist and vintage at the same time. Unable to connect to even the main character, I failed to see beyond the obvious, Major is the good guy, everyone else is out to harm her. A couple of characters cannot make up their minds if they are good or bad. Her past finds her, which sends her spiraling into a world of revenge and fighting while wearing a tight spandex style suit.

Save your money for a worthy movie, one that is cohesive and logical. As a remake, this movie has failed. The bottom line is while “Ghost in the Shell” creates an eccentric and potentially enjoyable world, too many loose ends, disconnected scenes, and emotionless characters fail to create a box-office hit. Let’s hope Scarlet Johansson finds her mojo again in the future. I am still confused why she was cast for a part that rightfully belonged to a Japanese person. Just one more disconnected aspect of the film. Hopefully, fans will find some redeeming qualities in the motion picture otherwise sales will be down, even more, when this film is released to Don home entertainment on July 25th, 2017.

Now available on Digital HD and on 4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray July 25th

 

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