Review of Ghost in the Shell (2017) by Therantinganchor R — 03 Apr 2017

With promises of a badass Scarlett Johansson and exciting visuals, Ghost in the Shell sounded like a fun sci-fi action pleasure.

Before watching Rupert Sanders' film, I had to see the original anime Ghost in the Shell (1995) twice. Yet neither times did I enjoy it. As much as I loved the animation and the central character, I found that there was far little action and too much uninvolved discussion. Even at 82 minutes I found the film to run for too long. If anything, I appreciated the film's potential and some of its concepts. But I also found that they were explored far better in countless other science fiction narratives, even in some that Ghost in the Shell actually inspired. But I figured that above all, Rupert Sanders' visual expertise would equip the film to be a treat for the eyes.

Rupert Sanders' direction will cause viewers to reflect heavily on his work on Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), but less on the visuals and more on the fact that he has no sense in how to make a story interesting in the slightest. Ghost in the Shell is a serious wake up call to the fact that Hollywood is running out of ideas. The entire film feels just like a watered-down version of the remake of Robocop (2014, but with a pretentious attempt at a Blade Runner (1982) aesthetic and both the titular character and a actress who portrayed her in Lucy (2014). Both films touch upon the cybernetic enhancement of a human for the sake of authoritarian weaponisation, and both films are set in a society where cynernetic enhancement has become a possibility. There are many thematic similarities, but the central difference is that the remake of RoboCop didn't suck. Despite lacking the innovation of the Paul Verhoeven original, Jose Padilla's RoboCop had some mildly intelligent political undertones and semi-decent characterization. Ghost in the Shell has none of this, and will leave audiences bored and thinking of times when other films did a much better job with the themes Rupert Sanders couldn't understand. The film maintains some of the problems I had with the original in that it echoed themes from better films without being that entertaining with them, but for Rupert Sanders to repeat the same mistake in such a dull and lifeless manner all over again 22 years later makes me wonder what the point of him adapting the story was in the first place.

The film is problematic from the very intro. After a dreamlike beginning which depicts the creation of Major Mira Killian's bodily form, we are immediately presented with the worst two characters in the entire form. Cutter is the film's obvious villain as clarified by the ridiculously cliche dialogue that stipulates his perspective on Killian as seeing her only as a weapon, and the monotonous efforts of Peter Ferdinando set up a consistently lacklustre path he remains on for the rest of the film. Dr. Ouelet is the generic mother figure of the film whose feminine nature allows her to feel more humanity when approaching the character, and she is played by Juliette Binoche in perhaps the worst performance I've seen from anyone so far in 2017. On top of being just a glimpse of the abundance of monotonous formulaic drama that Ghost in the Shell fails to escape for the rest of the film, it also betrays the mysterious nature of the original film. Where the live-action film begins, the original Ghost in the Shell anime began immediately when Killian's non-whitewashed anime equivalent entered into her assault mission and left audiences mezmerized by the mystery of the character. With the live-action version giving an established identity to the cyborg character, she is no longer elusive. We know what kind of character she is, so when we see her "naked" form there is no longer any surprise to it. We also see signs that the film has wildly mischaracterized the protagonist with an excess of humanization. The remainder of the scene shows of the film's potential as an action film since it displays Rupert Sanders' visual expertise and his ability to create frames that closely mimic the visual marvel of the original anime adaptation. But despite the stylish elements of this action scene, it is underwhelming due to a focus on showing off visual style more than actual cool stunts and choreography. And in the blink of an eye, it is over and we are brought back to a lacklustre story. The film isn't even ten minutes over, and already my hopes had become reduced to the low standard which it ultimately lived up to.

Ghost in the Shell does nothing with its themes. It is just another Hollywood blockbuster about the idea ethics in cybernetics, even though the idea almost never comes up. The theme of cybernetic enhancement and robotic sentience is never embraced either; both elements just dissolve against the backdrop of a story about another oppressive government regime pretending to be achieving heroic acts but using criminal behaviour to construct this facade. This is an overly recycled plot point in countless science fiction/action films, and the age of the source material behind Ghost in the Shell does not render it forgivable when there is a distinctive lack of innovation in every facet. Ghost in the Shell uses recycled plot points and archetypes to tell a story nobody is interested in hearing, and even the film's visuals cannot even rescue it. Like the original film there are extremely few action scenes, all of which are underwhelming due to an excess of reliance on visual effects over choreography as well as short running time and lacklustre lighting. There are extremely few of these over the 106 minute running time which makes the subpar storytelling unable to hide behind them. Even the extensively-designed universe is difficult to appreciate as the film doesn't alllow audiences any time to stop and smell the roses, rather having the characters rush through it so fast that there is never time to appreciate it for its entirety. This is a shame because it limits the scale of the narrative solely to a few characters who spend all their time talking their way through cliche screenplay. The lack of philosophy in the script, shortage of action and overall feeling of emptiness ensure that Ghost in the Shell lives up to its title as the ghost of better stories in the shell of an overblown production. And even though the film has an anime feelign at times, it is just another sign that the Western universe cannot make good live-action narratives based on anime. It's a job for the South Koreans.

Even the cast is a massive letdown, particularly Scarlett Johansson. Aside from the whitewashing controversy surrounding the character and the pathetic way that the re-written narrative attempts to retcon the bad studio decisions, Scarlett Johansson finds other ways to prove herself miscast. There is a certain robotocism which comes with anime characters that served as a major benefit to the anime adaptation of Ghost in the Shell, but it's not something so easily captured by any human actor. Despite her many talents, Scarlett Johansson cannot capture the correct balance of robot and human for her performance. There is often too much emotion in her facial expressions where it should be blank, but there is too much character for the character to relate at all to the titular "shell". Scarlett Johansson puts too much humanity into a character which needs less, and she pretends to have emotion when the character is given no emotional depth by the screenplay. As a result, her effort is a monotonous and awkward one. Physically she may look the part well enough while she certainly manages to put up a fight in the action scenes, but she ultimately ends up as a black-haired and monotonously talkative recreation of the same female action archetype she portrayed in Lucy. Scarlett Johansson is miscast for reasons far more significant than just her ethnicity, and it's quite disappointing in many areas.

But it's Juliette Binoche who is really terrible. Her character is meaningless and too dull to sympathise with, and her line delivery is even more monotonous than Scarlett Johansson. But what's really annoying is her accent. Juliette Binoche gives her character a pretentious lack of spirit or any real emotion and makes it worse with an accent that makes her words occasionally indecipherable. Her accent is just a distraction from everything, but underneath it is a truly dull and lifeless performance where she proves unable to elicit chemistry with absolutely anyone. Juliette Binoche gets little screen time which is the major relief of her performance, but the fact that she is cast at all is a major detriment to Ghost in the Shell.

Peter Ferdinando isn't worth any positive feedback either. The actor clarifies from the first moment that he is here to portray Cutter as a lifeless and cliche villain with no real feeling of threat. It comes as no surprise when he does this for the film's entirety, and his line delivery is as full as the rest of the films around him. Peter Ferdinando exhibits little more than a pretentious disinterest in the role, and it's easy to forget his character is ever there in the first place.

Pilou Asbaek is slightly more interesting because he looks perfectly like Batou from the anime film while also maintaining a confident action hero demeanour. And Michael Pitt has a modicum of elusive charm to him. But Takeshi Kitano is the one actor to give a brilliant performance in Ghost in the Shell. Despite being a simple supporting character, Chief Daisuke Aramaki is a man of restrained strength who takes charge when the time is right. He is subversive and unexpected with his character, consistently keeping audiences guessing about his next actions. And he does it by disguising all his actions underneath a consistently strong line delivery which stays singular in tone while he finds other ways to convey his character's state of mind. Takeshi Kitano doesn't have to put much effort in simply because he is naturally a brilliant talent, and he's the only person you can say that about with Ghost in the Shell.

Ghost in the Shell is a stunningly hollow and misguided Hollywood misfire which maintains the irritating pacing and limited narrative of the original anime but none of the character development or actual originality.