Review of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004) by Metadavic — 21 Jul 2018

I loved the original Ghost in the Shell (1995) movie, and was eager to see a sequel, and while the 3D graphics are amazing and the 2D animation is very good, the movie itself just slogs through the plot and dialogue like an overwrought TV show. I really don't understand why this gets such a high rating, especially after such a fantastic original. The dialogue ranges from brilliant to rambling pontification, some of which doesn't actually make sense when you follow its logic path, some contradictory, but most of it just way too long and distracting. I understand GitS is supposed to be contemplating man/machine/artificiality/intelligence, but this just goes over the top into banality. Especially some of the tangents and diatribes the villain takes, which are just silly.

The animation and action is generally great, but even then it seems to meander about and just take too long to get through. I don't like to say everything is just overly-detailed, but unfortunately it is and the movie just doesn't make the case for it. There's especially a strange "hallucination" scene that just gets too inception-like for its own good, and is filled with many of the cheesy laughable moments that make this sequel stand out in the wrong way.

Sorry if you disagree, I love robot and AI movies, but this one was so disappointing and slow and depressing that it took multiple sessions to get through without falling asleep or losing attention. Also the DVD did not have sub-titles so I had a hard time hearing some of the dialog; maybe that would have helped, but I doubt much.