Movie Review: Ghost in the Shell

This week the movie I am reviewing goes back in the realm of adults rather than young kids and family. Ghost in the Shell is based off of the manga by Masamune Shirow that was previously turned into an anime in 1995. My brothers are really into the anime genre so I was curious on how this live action remake would turn out. So, I hope you enjoy this review on Ghost in the Shell.

The movie starts with a woman being rushed to surgery after a major accident. We don't know what happened, but the only viable organ left is her brain and they plan to save it. We then see a robotic body not fully completed hanging in the air by wires and cords. As the brain gets put into the body electric wires come out to attach to the different nerve endings. It then goes through various liquid substances to finish creating the body. As the robot (played by Scarlett Johansson) wakes up from the procedure, she has trouble breathing. Dr. Ouelet (played by Juliet Binoche), who designed the robotic body, helps calm her down and breathe normally. Ouelet asks if she remembers anything about the attack, and the robot replies with how they, her and her family, were drowning. Ouelet confirms the story saying that her body died but her brain survived and was now in this new shell, while her brain, her ghost, lived on. The robot starts to panic and so they sedate her.

After the process is over we see Ouelet walk into a room and start talking to Cutter (played by Peter Ferdinando) who is the CEO of Hanka, the company who funded the project, and watched everything from the other room. He asks her a few questions about the body with the brain. She confirms that the robot, Mira, will have all the benefits of a robot with the ability to think and make decisions like a human. He tells Ouelet to get it over to Section 9, but she protests. He says that the robot is a weapon, then we flash forward to 1 year later.

The story plot seemed to have potential with all the many places they could take the story. Somethings I was expecting, which means there were very few twists and turns that took me by surprise. The big bad guy turned out to be exactly who I thought it was from the start. I guess getting right down to it, most of the story was predictable. The actions sequences were pretty cool, and the CGI graphics were stunning. If they could have picked up the storyline better it would have had the potential to be a great movie.

The acting was robotic, which is what I guess we were going for here. My question is this, if this is set in Japan, and Scarlett Johansson's character was originally of Japanese decent, was the choice to make her an American White female made to show the difference between who she was and who she is now intentional? It was not really answered in the movie, and seems like maybe it should be obvious, but could it be that they thought they could ride on her Avengers and Lucy success without putting much thought in how she would fit in the storyline. She did a great job of doing the robotic type acting, as she showed us in Lucy, but I felt she missed on the potential to do more. She is a human brain in the robot body, which would make one think she would still have emotions. Personally, I feel it is not her best movie.

Overall, the story plot was a bit predictable and the acting could have been better, but it wasn't all bad. With CGI as good as it was, it almost could have been passed off as real. Some changes could have been made in a few places, but otherwise I would rate this movie 7.5/10