Review of Ghost in the Shell (1995) by Chris P — 11 Oct 2011

I had to watch this one twice before I felt comfortable saying anything about it. Only because, I kept hearing from everyone who saw it, that it was wildly complex and thought provoking...Thought provoking, sure. Complex? Outside of ambiguous symbolism and imagery, I would have to disagree. The story itself is basically about a machine/program (whatever you want to call it) seeking humanity. And throught out the film it beggs the question of, "What makes you, you?" and "What defines life, and individuality?"...you know, those BIG questions. That's where the complexity comes in. It asks all these questions, questions that no one knows the answer to, and provides no answer, only silent understandings depicted by the characters. It leaves the viewer to interprite alot, which is great, but it was so vast and general that I couldn't get attached to anything. Even some of the dialogue felt like I was listening to a philosophy professor giving a lecture. Alot of interesting things, nothing really too engaging.

The visuals were the serious saving grace here. They were real nice. Imaginative and fluid, even if at some points the visuals seemed to be too into themselves, almost to the point where the makers were relying on them to carry the movie at certain parts. But, all in all, they did well with visual aspect of the movie.

My biggest problem with this movie is the fact that, they focused on a plot and theme that deals heavily in humanity, and there is a distinct lack of a human element. It reduces things down to a cold understanding, when it could had so much more weight to it. But, because it didn't have that human element, that relatable side, the questions it posed felt more like math problems rather than the type of soul searchy delema that they masqueraded as.

And because of all this, the characters had next to no deapth to them at all. They came off as entirly one dimensional, some broke out into two dimensions. For the most part though, they stuck to that one. But, then again, this at no point seemed to be a character piece. It was so heavy with story that the characters almost just became backdrops, or devices set in motion to only to serve the plot.

In closing, I really think this movie got more hype and credit than it deserves. It was a good movie, but an amazing sci-fi classic? I can't say I agree. There isn't enough substance to it for me to agree with that claim. To me it just seemed that they took a plot, a fairly simple one, threw some ponderous questions in there and topped it off with some (admittedly) pretty aweosme visuals. And people mistook it for being incredibly complex. It's only complex because of the questions it asked. Which are all questions we have thought of before (the only real relatable aspect of it). Or ones that Blade Runner posed more than a decade earlier, only to a much greater effect.