Review of Ghost in the Shell (2017) by Jimmy W — 04 May 2017

Ghost in the Shell is a live-action adaptation of the manga which also had an anime adaptation which was stellar. Of course, this being a Japanese manga, people were very "triggered" by the casting decisions, complaining that there's too many white actors and whatnot.

The movie gained a lot of hate because of this and I haven't seen many people really excited about this movie, but I have to admit, this is a pretty good movie! GitS follows Major, a robot with a human mind, who is hunting, along with her team, a serial killer/hacker who goes by the name of Kuze.

Kuze has been hacking into "people" who work for this huge robot company, Hanka Robotics, and killing them. He believes that they took memories of his past from him and wants to get everything they took from him, back.

This is basically the story, although there is also this great sideplot concerning Major and her past. The first thing that caught my eye in this movie were the visuals. This movie looks spectacular! I adore the atmosphere, the architecture and the lighting of this world.

Even though it is very heavily CGI-oriented, it looked great. Some scenes with Major took me out of the movie, though. There are some action scenes where she's wearing this skin-tight suit which makes her invisible at moments, and it constantly looked like Scarlett Johansson's head was added in post-production to an animated body.

It looked very off at moments, but thankfuly, those moments lasts only a few seconds. The music is fantastic! It mostly has an original score, but it also has a few songs that were in the original animated movie from 1995.

The opening shelling sequence is perfect. The score and the visuals go hand in hand and it's easily the most visually impressive manga/anime adaptation I've ever seen. Also being the one which sticks the closest to the source material.

The acting is good all around. Scarlett Johansson was perfect as Major and I loved how "robotic" she felt throughout. You could really tell her character wasn't human, she gave a very comitted performance and she never felt too human.

The characters I didn't care for the most part, but after a certain plot point is introduced one hour in, it really makes up for the rest of the movie not being too compelling character-wise. All in all, Ghost in the Shell is a good movie that I don't think is better or as good as the anime adaptation, but is a gorgeous looking movie with a fantastic soundtrack and great acting.

It's easily the most impressive live-action adaptation of a manga/anime and I would recommend it.