Ghost in the Shell

In the near future, cybernetic enhancements are commonplace.  In the case of Major Mira Killian (Scarlett Johansson), her entire body is high-end robotics, only her brain is housed in this mechanical body.  Her soul - or ghost - is housed in a shell.  She believes that she is the first of her kind, the case of a brain being implanted in an entirely artificial body.  Thanks to her unique status, she is a member of an elite team called Section 9.  Her current case involves a hacker known as the puppet master, a person who inserts false memories or even takes over the minds of others to do his bidding.  Interestingly, his targets are all associated with the Hanka Corporation, the very company that built her.

 

Ghost in the Shell is not quite a remake but it uses a lot of the classic scenes.  There is the iconic dive off a high rise in a stealth suit.  Yes, the skin-tight, skin-colored suit had to be included though it nixed the nipples, which was a good call.  We see the garbage truck driver being used as a pawn by the puppet master followed by a foot chase that ends in a fist fight in ankle deep water.  There is the scuba diving scene.  There is the spider tank that blasts away at the agile major while she tries to rescue the embodied puppet master.  Even her efforts to pull off the tank hatch at the expense of ripping her arms out of their sockets is duplicated.  The original was visually vibrant, often spending a lot of time on scenes of rain, the city, or people watching.  However, there were no gigantic holograms interwoven among the skyscrapers, which was mostly distracting.

Though the movie borrows heavily from the 1995 Anime, it dramatically changes the story.  In the original, some specialized hacking software becomes sentient and decides to build a body for itself, escape its masters, and look for a mate.  The major's origins are of little importance beyond the philosophical questions that her mostly mechanical existence raise.  She does wax philosophic a time or two.  In the end, she and the sentient software blend into a single new being, which sets her up to be the greatest hacker in existence in later movies.  In the 2017 version, the puppet master is a previous attempt to house a brain in a mechanical body, one that fell short of expectations and then escaped.  Moreover, in her life before her robot body, she was a friend of the puppet master, thus his efforts to win her to his cause rather than kill her.  Now her origins become evidence of vast criminality and human testing.  Similar to the 1995 version, the puppet master offers a joint life but she declines.

 

The Ghost in the Shell universe is very big on brain hacking.  Virtually every episode will have some poor victim brain hacked into going on a shooting spree and having to be put down.  Very quickly, one wonders why these people are getting cybernetic enhancements if they are just setting themselves up to be hacked?  The firewalls and virus programs of the future suck!

 

I'm not sure if my familiarity of Ghost in the Shell enhanced or detracted from my enjoyment of the film.  The casting was mostly adequate.  I have no problem with Scarlett Johansson as the major, who had huge blue eyes in the Anime.  I didn't like Aramaki, the head of Section 9.  The actor was too physically imposing, very different from the source.  Batou (Pilou Asbaek) was good though I didn't like how he got his bottle-cap eyes.  It's nice to be consistent with the series but it might have been best to upgrade his eyes; Wolverine never wore the yellow tights and the fans are mostly okay with that.  What works in comics and Anime often comes off silly on film.  All in all, it's not great but it is okay.  Fans of the series should see it.