Directed by: Jordan Peele
Written by: Jordan Peele
Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford
IMDb Link
Get Out is a great movie, using a familiar framework in creepy horror storytelling to tell a genuinely well-made and unique tale that blends brilliantly with satire of modern racism.
This is the story of Chris (Kaluuya), a black man who's taken by his white girlfriend Rose to meet her friends and family. Given that Chris is Rose's first black boyfriend, he's concerned about being on the receiving end of any potential racism. "They're not racist, my dad would've voted for Obama for a third time if he could" is Rose's reply, before we're inevitably taken in to a series of mightily uncomfortable and eventually horrifying situations that are all heavily peppered with racism. The set-up is very similar to films like The Wicker Man (both versions, though I'd argue strongly against seeing the 2006 version), Red State (2011) or the Stepford Wives (1975 and 2004), but with an interesting twist on the racism commentary.
This is exactly what makes Get Out so effective. Rose's dad, and indeed her family would have voted for Obama for a third time; they also like to wax lyrical about the superiority of black genetics and comment on the "African-American" experience. These people aren't out-and-out racists in the traditional sense; they're much more insidious, overcompensating for the derision and oppression of black people by attempting to lionise them to incredible lengths, creating an envy that gets literally embodied.
Impressively, Peele manages to make this premise work for the sake of both horror and comedy. There's a certain uncomfortable air that holds over the entire movie, as Chris is introduced to character after character who blatantly tries to overcompensate (Chris meets a former pro golfer, "Oh, I love Tiger Woods", Chris is trying to have a casual conversation and it turns in to a talk about fashionable skin colour "Black is in"). Each one of these scenes gets a laugh at the initial ridiculousness of each of these characters' actions or statements, but then slowly becomes claustrophobic as each character takes it that little bit further with their inappropriate behaviour , and leaves you trapped in the scene with Chris, growing paranoid as he does. and wanting only for him to get out (hey, that's the title of the movie). There's also plenty of small lines that seem delivered deliberately to have double-meaning; talk of exterminating deer or mentions of "black mold" seem so purposefully placed that they stand out, and got an uncomfortable chuckle out of me more than once.
Aside from the clever racial commentary and good use of direction to create uncomfortable and trapped sensations, Get Out has a soundtrack that, while somewhat overbearing, suits the movie very well. A lot of high-pitched strings playing odd notes and shrieking at the right times just adds to the constant uncomfortable feeling the film holds in your gut for its duration, and helps build the slow but steady tension that makes its way through the film.
The Verdict: Get Out is excellent at taking real-world social attitudes and amplifying them to create deeply uncomfortable situations for the sake of both horror and comedy, as well as mixing the two extremely smoothly. The satirical jabs at racism can go from hilarious to chilling in a heartbeat, and its all backed up by strong direction and an appropriate soundtrack. If you like horror, I highly recommend it if you're up for more scares that come from built up tension and a feeling of helplessness. If you like satire, I think this film offers some clever and humorous insight in to topics of racism that haven't been as heavily explored as others. If you like both, then get out and go see Get Out.
Rating: 8/10
Published April 29th, 2017
Saturday, 29 April 2017
Monday, 24 April 2017
2017 Film Review: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Directed by: James Gunn
Written by: James Gunn
Starring: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista
The Marvel machine churns out another one.. It isn't fresh or original, but Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 manages to re-use all of what made the first film work while dealing with a few issues of its own.
*Warning: Potential Spoilers Ahead*
The best part of Guardians 2 is the opening sequence. We're treated to a hilarious action sequence involving the Guardians (Pratt, Saldana, Bautista, and Bradley Cooper all returning for their roles) fighting an inter-dimensional alien that burps rainbow dust. However, instead of following the action, we as the audience get to watch the adorable Baby Groot (Vin Diesel) do a little dance number as the action happens in the background. All of the other Guardians behave like parents to Groot during this little sequence, Cooper's Rocket stopping Groot from eating a bug, Pratt's Star-Lord keeping him out of harm's way, etc, while dazzling colours and explosions streak across the screen. It's a charming and silly scene that highlights exactly what works about these films: endearing characters with an uneven sense of camaraderie, saving planets like it's just another Monday and not taking itself seriously. It also sets the tone for the movie in much the same way that the opening for the first film did.
The film that follows is never quite as good as its opening, but it's still worthwhile. The Guardians are visited by a being called Ego; a Celestial, a god, so to speak, who appears in human form as Kurt Russell (and let's be honest, if a god had to choose a human to appear as, who better than Kurt Russell?) and reveals himself as Star-Lord's dad. Ego offers to show Star-Lord his heritage, and takes Star-Lord, Gamora (Saldana), and Drax (Bautista) to the planet where the rest of Ego's being resides, joined by Ego's servant Mantis (Pom Klementieff). There are also subplots involving the return of Yondu (Michael Rooker) and Nebula (Karen Gillan), which slowly turn their respective ways in the direction of the main plot.
This plot structure leads to a considerable amount of pacing problems for the movie; while it's not uncommon for films to follow a "meanwhile, back at the ranch" style of storytelling, Guardians 2 is weighed down by having multiple "ranches" to go back to, while also needing the subplots to thread together with the main plot before really kicking off the conflict of the main plot. The Ego story has to wait for the others to catch up, so there's a lot of time spent watching Kurt Russell delivering expository dialogue while somewhat hinting at the true conflict of the movie. It doesn't help that the main plot is extremely predictable (surprise, surprise, Ego's purpose for finding Star-Lord was much more nefarious than he initially gave on); of all things this film reminded me of, the plot is actually extremely similar to Dragonball Z: Broly the Legendary Super Saiyan (1993), which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but simply notable for how close the main plots of these two movies are.
Aside from the problems with the story, the endearing characters and cheeky humour are back, as well as the excellent music and more inspired visuals than what are usually shown in Marvel movies. Dialogue between characters seems mostly natural and builds the idea of chemistry between the characters (with the obvious exception of Drax, who continues to entertain with his purposefully forced demeanour); there's only a few choice moments that I found to be odd, and they're not enough to diminish what I mostly find to be a success in the film. In particular I loved the relationshi of Star-Lord and Gamora; there was genuine romantic tension between them in every one of their scenes, and while there wasn't as much growth between them as I had hoped, it's still satisfying to watch the two of them on-screen. The humour is silly and childish, and works as well as it did in the first one, working with the playful, carefree way that the Guardians movies treat most of their conflicts. As for the music and visuals, there's the same use of 80s classics to help theme the movie, and a blinding use of bright colours and textures that create a campy, cartoonish look which separates the Guardians movies from other MCU films.
Of course, one more thing that didn't always work for me as I was watching the film were its tonal shifts towards more serious moments. Some moments worked because they clearly affected a particular character's view of their own life, a moment that is easy to get invested in because I was endeared to that character. Other moments failed to work, such as the death of a particular character, which wasn't nearly as effective as I think James Gunn had hoped it would be because that character's significance had only been played up specifically for this film's story. It's not a worthless moment, but at least in my case it seemed like a cop out to try and get a few cheap tears by disposing of a character that had only really mattered in the last hour.
The Verdict: Guardians 2 is bright, boisterous and quite a bit cheeky, offering up much the same of what people loved about the original. At the same time, it has trouble with pacing as it tries to juggle a few side stories while spending a lot of time meandering through its main plot in an attempt to build tension through mystery while using a plot that isn't what you'd call original. It's never dull, but it's occasionally slow, and while it still offers the best of what we saw in the first film, there's nothing here that's new. All things considered, it succeeds in doing what all Marvel movies seek to do, which is to entertain its audience, so while it suffers, at least to this viewer, from the growing 'superhero movie fatigue', I still recommend it if you enjoyed the first.
Rating: 7/10
Published April 24th, 2017. at 11:59pm
Thursday, 13 April 2017
2017 Film Review: The Fate of the Furious (2017)
Directed by: F. Gary Gray
Written by: Chris Morgan
Starring: Vin Diesel, Jason Statham, Dwayne Johnson
IMDb Link
I have some respect for the The Fast and the Furious series; that fact that it has managed to stay relevant and popular enough to produce now eight installments when it hasn't come directly from any source material or existing IP like the Transformers or Marvel movies is at least noteworthy. That said, with each new film, its becomes more and more apparent that there isn't going to be anything particularly new, and the familial overtones of the film start to be less endearing as they get more ridiculous.
"Dominic Toretto has gone rogue" - That's essentially what happens. For reasons that I won't spoil here, Dom (Diesel) betrays his crew and teams up with super duper hacker Cipher (Charlize Theron, positively oozing evil) to help her acquire EMPs, nuclear codes and all that world-ending stuff. The rest of the cast make their return (with the obvious exception of Paul Walker, R.I.P.) and work together to find Dom and stop Cipher.
The film is essentially another excuse to showcase excessive, merciless carnage; I'm fairly certain that the action scenes for these movies are written first, and the story is filled in afterwards, an idea that seems to be reflected in the film's villain. Cipher's motivations are some vague anti-governmental nonsense laced with somewhat contradictory philosophies about choice; her ultimate plan is essentially to use nukes to threaten people to stop using nukes, and is never explained in any detail. She's just there to be a villain who is written retroactively to have been involved as the master behind the plans of the previous two movie's villains; she has no development beyond that and doesn't do anything in the movie other than be evil and talk to Dom about ideology. She's not good, but Theron plays her well; like I said, her character is purely evil, and Theron makes that pour from every facet of her character. That said, there's every chance that she'll come back as a good guy in a future movie, given this film series' track record.
At least the average excuse for carnage results in a lot of entertaining and excessive chase scenes that try to outdo the previous films. Images of dozens of remote-controlled cars tearing through New York or a submarine surging after the crew while firing torpedoes are certainly memorable, and it allows for some stupidly hilarious moments that showcase the fact that these characters are invincible supermen/women; you may have seen The Rock pushing a torpedo off-course while skidding along the ice in the film's promotional material, but surprisingly that's probably the least of the many awesome and literally unbelievable feats that he pulls off in this movie. Ripping a concrete seat from a concrete wall and using it as a barbell, taking rubber bullets from a shotgun without even flinching, literally throwing a group of people in riot gear across a room, The Rock is unstoppable in this movie, and he does this while being extremely macho the whole time. He works wonderfully with Jason Statham (back this time as a good guy), who exudes the same manliness and badass attitude.
While I loved both The Rock and Jason Statham for their usual excessive action-star style, the thing that I appreciated most in the film overall was the scenes in which they were required to be nurturing. It's hilarious and sweet to see a larger-than-life figure like The Rock's Luke Hobbs take the time to coach his daughter's soccer team and be more invested in that than in world-saving, or to see Statham's gruff and tough Shaw have to take a break from shooting people every few seconds to make sure that a baby is happy. These guys are action heroes but have to turn all the absurd machismo off and soften for moment for the sake of the children. I adored these scenes, even if it was particularly mindless to have this by done by Statham's character, considering he was an antagonist in the last film.
Unfortunately, the action does take a noticeable dive in quality in its fight scenes; the film follows the same trend of shaky-cam and constant cutting that makes a lot of the fighting incomprehensible and uncomfortable to look at. This isn't always the case, but for every high-impact punch, grapple or throw their's a flurry of shots that leave you displeased and just wanting to get back to the car scenes where the action is at its strongest. I'd comment on the quality of the choreography, but I could barely see it while it was happening. The film's central conflict for Dom is also a little weak; it makes sense given his character, but it's way too serious for a film series that has spent the last three films avoiding taking itself seriously. It's hard to describe without giving it away, but when the rest of the film is fancy-free escapism, giving Dom actual stakes with possible results that will affect him emotionally is off-key with the rest of what's been happening in these films; named characters dying makes no sense in a series that prevents even its villains from being killed off.
The Verdict: A new movie, but mostly the same stuff. The Fate of the Furious continues the series' constant efforts to one-up itself, and for the most part succeeds, but gets a little tiresome between the car chase scenes with its somewhat shoddy fight camera work and almost soap opera-level family drama. It's worth the watch if you're up for some more mindless action and exuberant car porn, but there's not a lot here if you're looking for something with weight; even when the film tries to add weight to its events, it can't be taken seriously because of its invincible characters. Enjoy it for what it is; over-the-top action and massive machismo mixed with the usual bits and pieces about 'family'.
Rating: 6/10
Published April 13th, 2017
Written by: Chris Morgan
Starring: Vin Diesel, Jason Statham, Dwayne Johnson
IMDb Link
I have some respect for the The Fast and the Furious series; that fact that it has managed to stay relevant and popular enough to produce now eight installments when it hasn't come directly from any source material or existing IP like the Transformers or Marvel movies is at least noteworthy. That said, with each new film, its becomes more and more apparent that there isn't going to be anything particularly new, and the familial overtones of the film start to be less endearing as they get more ridiculous.
"Dominic Toretto has gone rogue" - That's essentially what happens. For reasons that I won't spoil here, Dom (Diesel) betrays his crew and teams up with super duper hacker Cipher (Charlize Theron, positively oozing evil) to help her acquire EMPs, nuclear codes and all that world-ending stuff. The rest of the cast make their return (with the obvious exception of Paul Walker, R.I.P.) and work together to find Dom and stop Cipher.
The film is essentially another excuse to showcase excessive, merciless carnage; I'm fairly certain that the action scenes for these movies are written first, and the story is filled in afterwards, an idea that seems to be reflected in the film's villain. Cipher's motivations are some vague anti-governmental nonsense laced with somewhat contradictory philosophies about choice; her ultimate plan is essentially to use nukes to threaten people to stop using nukes, and is never explained in any detail. She's just there to be a villain who is written retroactively to have been involved as the master behind the plans of the previous two movie's villains; she has no development beyond that and doesn't do anything in the movie other than be evil and talk to Dom about ideology. She's not good, but Theron plays her well; like I said, her character is purely evil, and Theron makes that pour from every facet of her character. That said, there's every chance that she'll come back as a good guy in a future movie, given this film series' track record.
At least the average excuse for carnage results in a lot of entertaining and excessive chase scenes that try to outdo the previous films. Images of dozens of remote-controlled cars tearing through New York or a submarine surging after the crew while firing torpedoes are certainly memorable, and it allows for some stupidly hilarious moments that showcase the fact that these characters are invincible supermen/women; you may have seen The Rock pushing a torpedo off-course while skidding along the ice in the film's promotional material, but surprisingly that's probably the least of the many awesome and literally unbelievable feats that he pulls off in this movie. Ripping a concrete seat from a concrete wall and using it as a barbell, taking rubber bullets from a shotgun without even flinching, literally throwing a group of people in riot gear across a room, The Rock is unstoppable in this movie, and he does this while being extremely macho the whole time. He works wonderfully with Jason Statham (back this time as a good guy), who exudes the same manliness and badass attitude.
While I loved both The Rock and Jason Statham for their usual excessive action-star style, the thing that I appreciated most in the film overall was the scenes in which they were required to be nurturing. It's hilarious and sweet to see a larger-than-life figure like The Rock's Luke Hobbs take the time to coach his daughter's soccer team and be more invested in that than in world-saving, or to see Statham's gruff and tough Shaw have to take a break from shooting people every few seconds to make sure that a baby is happy. These guys are action heroes but have to turn all the absurd machismo off and soften for moment for the sake of the children. I adored these scenes, even if it was particularly mindless to have this by done by Statham's character, considering he was an antagonist in the last film.
Unfortunately, the action does take a noticeable dive in quality in its fight scenes; the film follows the same trend of shaky-cam and constant cutting that makes a lot of the fighting incomprehensible and uncomfortable to look at. This isn't always the case, but for every high-impact punch, grapple or throw their's a flurry of shots that leave you displeased and just wanting to get back to the car scenes where the action is at its strongest. I'd comment on the quality of the choreography, but I could barely see it while it was happening. The film's central conflict for Dom is also a little weak; it makes sense given his character, but it's way too serious for a film series that has spent the last three films avoiding taking itself seriously. It's hard to describe without giving it away, but when the rest of the film is fancy-free escapism, giving Dom actual stakes with possible results that will affect him emotionally is off-key with the rest of what's been happening in these films; named characters dying makes no sense in a series that prevents even its villains from being killed off.
The Verdict: A new movie, but mostly the same stuff. The Fate of the Furious continues the series' constant efforts to one-up itself, and for the most part succeeds, but gets a little tiresome between the car chase scenes with its somewhat shoddy fight camera work and almost soap opera-level family drama. It's worth the watch if you're up for some more mindless action and exuberant car porn, but there's not a lot here if you're looking for something with weight; even when the film tries to add weight to its events, it can't be taken seriously because of its invincible characters. Enjoy it for what it is; over-the-top action and massive machismo mixed with the usual bits and pieces about 'family'.
Rating: 6/10
Published April 13th, 2017
Thursday, 6 April 2017
2017 Film Review: Ghost in the Shell (2017)
Directed by: Rupert Sanders
Written by: Jamie Moss, William Wheeler, Ehren Kruger (based upon The Ghost in the Shell by Masamune Shirow)
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Pilou Asbæk, Takeshi Kitano
This adaptation of the popular manga/anime Ghost in the Shell offers a gorgeous and overwhelmingly stimulating visual world, but tells a story that doesn't seem to address the same issues that were explored in the 1995 anime version.
*Warning: Spoilers Ahead*
We're introduced to a futuristic world, where people augment themselves with cybernetics that allow them enhancements such as strength, speed and intelligence, as well as the ability to store thoughts and memories as data directly from their brain. The film follows Major Mira Killian (Johansson), a member of Section 9, an anti-terrorist bureau, the first person to be a human brain inside an entirely mechanical body. We see Major struggle with her identity as the only one of her kind while tracking down a terrorist who uses robots and eventually human cybernetics to attack members of Hanka Robotics, the creators of these augmentations and robots.
The film's plot seems to have avoided considering the same ideas that the anime dealt with, changing enough details in the nature of Major's origin and the world around her to help fit the themes that the filmmakers must have wanted to look at instead. The 1995 original looked at the world in a broader sense, tackling the philosophical and ethical potential behind humanity losing itself as it slowly turns to a cyber existence as well as the 'humanity' of an artificial intelligence, in addition to some thought put towards the way we view memories and how we see our lives, using the Major as a vehicle for the exploration of this world as much as a subject of the plot. The intrigue was not just in the fact that someone was hacking other people to do their bidding, but also in the way he would replace people's memories or the mystery of his identity. The new film touches on these ideas, but so lightly that they're barely a factor of the story, instead turning all of its focus upon the Major as a character, and paying particular attention to the tweaks that were made to her character in order to fit this adaptation. There's nothing particularly wrong with changing things in adapting them, however I believe Ghost in the Shell has not improved upon its source material with the changes; the concept of the film is lowered in an attempt to attract a larger audience. Major's uniqueness is played up to no end; the film reminds you of her 'one of a kind' status often enough for it to be obnoxious, instead of just letting her being an upgraded standard model 'shell', because the film wants her to be the first of her kind rather than the relative norm, and turn the mystery in to something surrounding that fact alone. While this could work, there's nothing offered up to really attach the audience to Major as a character. Themes of loneliness and searching for a connection in the world can make for a solid story, but the constant reminder of Major being completely unique makes her too different, too 'other' to be relatable, and all revelations about her character or about her past are hard to care for. Moral grey areas are removed entirely, bad guys are bad guys, good guys are good guys, no AIs are around to complicate the narrative, it's all relatively straightforward and easy to follow, but made shallow because of it. Mentioning that when Mira was human she used to write manifestos about the evils of cybernetics is only a little clever because it makes her current state ironic, and it doesn't do anything to make me care more about the character or the issues related to cybernetics because the film barely develops Major and only lightly touches on the potential dangers of cybernetics without exploring the idea as a whole. It doesn't help that the film hamfists tidbits of philosophy throughout its dialogue, rarely enough that when it happens it comes off as forced, but often enough to be noticeable and annoying. It's as if the filmmakers were trying to say "hey guys, we still care about the message of the original see, we just want to tell our own story here, ok?" It isn't really bad, but it isn't particularly good either, and the film's devolution in to a dusty and incomprehensible action piece in its finale just devalues what little weight their was in Major's journey.
That said, despite the mediocre-at-best plot, the film does go a long way to fully show the world of Ghost in the Shell. Every scene is packed with heavily coloured and hologram-ed information, just covering the screen with the different colours and bright lights of the city as seen in the manga/anime, revealing to us a vibrant, living and breathing neon cyberpunk space that just begs to be explored. It's another case of the world's live-action depiction alone almost making the movie worth the watch. The soundtrack helps, too, with a very obvious 80s cyberpunk synth influence, doing its best to affect the mood of every scene as accurately as possible. While these aspects don't erase the shortcomings of the film entirely, they are very well done in their own right.
The Verdict: The visual style and soundtrack of Ghost in the Shell are dazzling almost to the point of sensory overload, but this adaptation is lacking in its story, trading the philosophical and slightly mystical discussion found in the 1995 version for a plot that's far more personal to its main character, without actually making the main character personable. This film seems to miss the point of its source material, and doesn't ever try to show real depth, so I can't see it offering much in the way of value to fans of the manga/anime in terms of story, but the world seems fully realised in its translation from animation to live-action, so people familiar with the material might appreciate the effort that clearly went in to making the film look great. As for newcomers, the film doesn't try to be as lofty as the story it is based upon, so it should be more accessible, if distinctly shallow. I don't recommend this film, although I don't recommend against it either.
Rating: 5.5/10
Published April 6th, 2017
Written by: Jamie Moss, William Wheeler, Ehren Kruger (based upon The Ghost in the Shell by Masamune Shirow)
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Pilou Asbæk, Takeshi Kitano
This adaptation of the popular manga/anime Ghost in the Shell offers a gorgeous and overwhelmingly stimulating visual world, but tells a story that doesn't seem to address the same issues that were explored in the 1995 anime version.
*Warning: Spoilers Ahead*
We're introduced to a futuristic world, where people augment themselves with cybernetics that allow them enhancements such as strength, speed and intelligence, as well as the ability to store thoughts and memories as data directly from their brain. The film follows Major Mira Killian (Johansson), a member of Section 9, an anti-terrorist bureau, the first person to be a human brain inside an entirely mechanical body. We see Major struggle with her identity as the only one of her kind while tracking down a terrorist who uses robots and eventually human cybernetics to attack members of Hanka Robotics, the creators of these augmentations and robots.
The film's plot seems to have avoided considering the same ideas that the anime dealt with, changing enough details in the nature of Major's origin and the world around her to help fit the themes that the filmmakers must have wanted to look at instead. The 1995 original looked at the world in a broader sense, tackling the philosophical and ethical potential behind humanity losing itself as it slowly turns to a cyber existence as well as the 'humanity' of an artificial intelligence, in addition to some thought put towards the way we view memories and how we see our lives, using the Major as a vehicle for the exploration of this world as much as a subject of the plot. The intrigue was not just in the fact that someone was hacking other people to do their bidding, but also in the way he would replace people's memories or the mystery of his identity. The new film touches on these ideas, but so lightly that they're barely a factor of the story, instead turning all of its focus upon the Major as a character, and paying particular attention to the tweaks that were made to her character in order to fit this adaptation. There's nothing particularly wrong with changing things in adapting them, however I believe Ghost in the Shell has not improved upon its source material with the changes; the concept of the film is lowered in an attempt to attract a larger audience. Major's uniqueness is played up to no end; the film reminds you of her 'one of a kind' status often enough for it to be obnoxious, instead of just letting her being an upgraded standard model 'shell', because the film wants her to be the first of her kind rather than the relative norm, and turn the mystery in to something surrounding that fact alone. While this could work, there's nothing offered up to really attach the audience to Major as a character. Themes of loneliness and searching for a connection in the world can make for a solid story, but the constant reminder of Major being completely unique makes her too different, too 'other' to be relatable, and all revelations about her character or about her past are hard to care for. Moral grey areas are removed entirely, bad guys are bad guys, good guys are good guys, no AIs are around to complicate the narrative, it's all relatively straightforward and easy to follow, but made shallow because of it. Mentioning that when Mira was human she used to write manifestos about the evils of cybernetics is only a little clever because it makes her current state ironic, and it doesn't do anything to make me care more about the character or the issues related to cybernetics because the film barely develops Major and only lightly touches on the potential dangers of cybernetics without exploring the idea as a whole. It doesn't help that the film hamfists tidbits of philosophy throughout its dialogue, rarely enough that when it happens it comes off as forced, but often enough to be noticeable and annoying. It's as if the filmmakers were trying to say "hey guys, we still care about the message of the original see, we just want to tell our own story here, ok?" It isn't really bad, but it isn't particularly good either, and the film's devolution in to a dusty and incomprehensible action piece in its finale just devalues what little weight their was in Major's journey.
That said, despite the mediocre-at-best plot, the film does go a long way to fully show the world of Ghost in the Shell. Every scene is packed with heavily coloured and hologram-ed information, just covering the screen with the different colours and bright lights of the city as seen in the manga/anime, revealing to us a vibrant, living and breathing neon cyberpunk space that just begs to be explored. It's another case of the world's live-action depiction alone almost making the movie worth the watch. The soundtrack helps, too, with a very obvious 80s cyberpunk synth influence, doing its best to affect the mood of every scene as accurately as possible. While these aspects don't erase the shortcomings of the film entirely, they are very well done in their own right.
The Verdict: The visual style and soundtrack of Ghost in the Shell are dazzling almost to the point of sensory overload, but this adaptation is lacking in its story, trading the philosophical and slightly mystical discussion found in the 1995 version for a plot that's far more personal to its main character, without actually making the main character personable. This film seems to miss the point of its source material, and doesn't ever try to show real depth, so I can't see it offering much in the way of value to fans of the manga/anime in terms of story, but the world seems fully realised in its translation from animation to live-action, so people familiar with the material might appreciate the effort that clearly went in to making the film look great. As for newcomers, the film doesn't try to be as lofty as the story it is based upon, so it should be more accessible, if distinctly shallow. I don't recommend this film, although I don't recommend against it either.
Rating: 5.5/10
Published April 6th, 2017
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