Ghost in the Shell

Jumping in just before the hotly anticipated Bladerunner sequel was the sci-fi remake Ghost in the Shell starring Scarlett Johansson. The trailers for this had me hooked with its creative visuals, and the source material had a positive reputation so it was on to a good start.

Just like the iconic Bladerunner, we enter a run-down vision of the future where the division between humans and robots has started to blur. Johansson's Major, a cyborg counter-terrorism operative, is tasked with locating a mysterious hacker while always searching for clue to her human background. This is in some ways the typical 'who was I before?' narrative but Rupert Sanders' visuals do enough at the start to keep the story moving.

However, it's unfortunate that what appears to have been well-rounded characters in the source material are reduced to minor roles making the overall film hard to engage with, made worse with clumsy exposition while pondering themes above its station. I then felt like I was watching a severely cut-down version of the film which left the best parts on the cutting-room floor, which would have given the film character ironically. The action also suffers with a similar problem to the Total Recall remake where it looks pretty but lacks that killer edge to truly make you feel every punch and gun shot.

But there are moments of promise with good performances from Johansson, Michael Pitt and Pilou Asbæk. Takeshi Kitano stands out as Major's boss and has a couple of scenes that hint towards what Ghost in the Shell wanted to be. If only the screenplay had been stronger then we might have had a story worthy of the great visuals and hard work on production values that has so clearly gone into this.

Ghost in the Shell is ultimately entertaining but falls short of where it wants to be which is made all the more painful given the potential of the source material. Upon further research it seems that the studio had a heavy hand in cutting and rewriting various scenes, which is disappointing to hear, and that there is a campaign setup for an extended cut. I'm not sure how effective this could be but if you're interested, click the link below. Once again the studio are up to their old mischief.

https://www.change.org/p/paramount-create-a-director-s-cut-for-ghost-in-the-shell-2017-gitsdc