quote:

Paramount’s all-new live-action reboot emerges as a dazzling logistical display with a missing file where the human interest might once have been stored.

Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 cyberpunk opus, “Ghost in the Shell,” was one of the first Japanese anime titles to cross over to Western audiences, and it’s been reissued and repackaged so often since the millennium that it’s scant surprise studio execs seized upon it as reproducible property. Possibly it was a matter of waiting: for digital effects houses to get up to spec, the right deals to be struck, and any accusations of cultural appropriation to blow over. Paramount’s all-new live-action “Ghost,” powered by hefty reserves of American and Asian money, emerges as a dazzling logistical display with a missing file where the human interest might once have been stored.

Fans need not blubber unduly. As overseen by “Snow White and the Huntsman” director Rupert Sanders, this transliteration would seem faithful enough to satiate those who just want to see favorite scenes and characters redrawn on the biggest screen imaginable. As that suggests, what’s been tinkered with is the scale. Oshii’s knotty postmodern inquiries into identity — a stopover on that sci-fi continuum connecting “Blade Runner” to “The Matrix” — are here stretched into IMAX-ready, 3D-enabled spectacle. Blown up to this magnitude, ideas already threadbare through 20 years of recycling start to look doubly thin.

...

More compelling than any of these figures, however, is the realm they pass through. Sanders’ flawed but glitzy “Snow White” rehash positioned him as a facilitator of lavishly visualized, if faintly derivative, worlds. Armed here with the latest modeling software and several skilled analogue collaborators, including production designer Jan Roelfs (“Gattaca”), emergent cinematographer Jess Hall (“Transcendence”), he goes into hyperdrive. Every scene thrusts out something to catch (and occasionally caress) the eye: murky drinking dens besieged by scuttling, arachnoid attendants, a watery virtual limbo where binary ones and zeroes float up like bubbles.

So yes, it’s the shiniest of kit; whether the emotions are stirred is another matter. Johansson sets the level of engagement, playing the impervious shell rather better than the restless ghost. In 2013’s unsettling “Under the Skin,” the actress was directed into signaling a hybrid’s dawning consciousness (and conscience); here, she’s limited to looking puzzled while convoluted plot elements stream around her. The time Johansson logged among the Avengers means she could perform the role’s rear end-kicking aspects in her sleep — but in so many other scenes, she appears to be on autopilot.

Supporting players are defined chiefly by their hairstyles. “Snowtown” ne’er-do-well Daniel Henshall models a mullet that identifies him as an individual of questionable judgement; Major’s sidekick Pilou Asbaek sports a shock of white fluff that might work for manga heroes but turns grown men into Billy Idol tribute acts. As his explosion-blackened corneas are replaced with ophthalmic lenses, you sense a rampant techno-decorousness beginning to consume the performers. That instinct is compounded upon seeing Buddhist monks plugged into a towering cable router redolent of the Tree of Life in “Avatar.” Like much else here, it’s striking but second-hand.

Woof Blitzer posted:

I will still consider it a good movie if it retains the "1.5 hour music video" format that Tron: Legacy used.

Snowman_McK posted:

I had money on 'forgettable'

Does that count?

Junior Jr. posted:

I think some of us predicted it was going to be okay, and so far the reviews have been 'okay'.

So...we were right?

Woof Blitzer posted:

I will still consider it a good movie if it retains the "1.5 hour music video" format that Tron: Legacy used.

Mithaldu posted:

That's what everybody expected, a "drink too much beer and watch blinkenlights" movie that is forgotten a week later, not just "some".

Also the positive reviews stem from people who demonstrate they haven't seen the original.

Mithaldu posted:

In a way i feel it is deserved, they could have named it something else and would be scored entirely on their own merits, but they couldn't refuse that sweet brand recognition.

Mithaldu posted:

In a way i feel it is deserved, they could have named it something else and would be scored entirely on their own merits, but they couldn't refuse that sweet brand recognition.

Bugblatter posted:

Well, no it couldn't, it's not that far removed. You can't recreate the iconic sequences in this detail and not have a lawsuit.

K. Waste posted:

Mithaldu posted:

Are you ever actually going to make an effort or are you content with being a fifth-rate smg?

Young Freud posted:

Ummm...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3tF7TL0Qh4&t=91s

Mithaldu posted:

Are you ever actually going to make an effort or are you content with being a fifth-rate smg?

Mithaldu posted:

In a way i feel it is deserved, they could have named it something else and would be scored entirely on their own merits, but they couldn't refuse that sweet brand recognition.

Mithaldu posted:

Are you ever actually going to make an effort or are you content with being a fifth-rate smg?

Bugblatter posted:

Well, no it couldn't, it's not that far removed. You can't recreate the iconic sequences in this detail and not have a lawsuit.

Snowman_McK posted:

So, they could have made their own movie, but they would have had to come up with their own action set pieces rather than recreating them, but somehow doing them worse. You're not making a very good case for the idea that this needed to be GITS movie.

FuturePastNow posted:

Brand loyalty does matter. I'll go see a Star Trek movie even if it looks terrible, because even if it really is terrible, more sales means more chance they'll make another one that might be better.

Bugblatter posted:

Sure, they could have... made a completely different movie? Or they could have made an adaptation, which they did.

Adaptations are cool and good when they explore new territory with familiar elements. GitS has been popcorn narratives with slapstick humor and technogeek daydreaming, moody philosophical intrigue, and a police procedural that posed speculative ethical questions. Now it's a action film with superhero leanings. This is just carrying on the tradition.

HIJK posted:

Anybody seen it yet?

Josh Lyman posted:

I guess I could take one for the team and attend a screening at a small art cinema theater tonight.

Bugblatter posted:

He stated a not uncommon stance on the critical approach?

quote:

Why, given that Sexy Fighting Robot Lady, has a Barbie body, does she bother with underpants and clothes in some scenes but not in others? Do Donald Duck rules apply?

Bugblatter posted:

The scenes released online are poor indication of the final film's style. The "first five minutes" are neither the start of the film, nor is that sequence only five minutes. The advertisers essentially edited a more action packed cliff-notes version of the scene. Same goes for the canal fight.