Ghost in the Shell



Hello dear reader. Back in 1995, when mobile phones were the size of house bricks and online streaming meant waiting to pick up a prescription for your cold, Manga was all the rage and a bit of a worldwide thing. You couldn’t swing a cat shaped chopstick without knocking over or walking into a comic book or film adaptation of all things anime. During this golden age of oriental animation there were a few standout tittles, including Akira, Battle Angel and more Dragon Ball Z films than you could comfortably conceive. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that Hollywood, who let’s face are always on the lookout for new and untapped source material, have decided to produce a live action version of Ghost in the Shell. Now, I’m going to state for the record that I won’t be commenting on the casting issues that have followed this film around since day one. Mostly because I’m only giving my opinion on the finished film and the how its holds up. And also because there are only so many hours in the day and regardless of whether you are for or against the casting of Ms Johansson, in the lead role, there are people and news articles out there that can give you a much more of an informed view into to the pros and cons of the studios decision.

So let’s begin at the beginning. Right off the bat I have to say I was thinking about using the acronym for Ghost in the Shell for the rest of this review but it turns out that’s ‘GITS’ which I think we can all agree, doesn’t really work. So if you don’t mind the extra wordage, I’m going to refer to the full title of the film, every time it needs to be mentioned. Mostly for my sanity but also a little because I think you’re nice and a movie blog is no place to use even slightly aggressive or for that matter fucking rude language, I hope you understand. 

Ghost in the Shell is set in the near future; Scarlett Johansson plays Major Motoko Kusanagi. A cyber enhanced weapon that has a soul, memories and the ability to kick ass when asked to do so. Living in a world where terrorism can be conducted via thought, the Major is used to hunt people and organisations down, bring them to justice and where necessary, eliminate them.  This is effectively Robocop 2.0 with hint of the Blade Runner, albeit with the colour pallet turned up to eleven. Ghost in the Shell manages to be visually impressive but without really engaging the audience. It’s a bit like the opening credits to Star Trek Voyager. It all looks very pretty and has obviously had a lot of time, energy and effort poured into it but when it’s all said and done, there’s no emotional connection. Having not seen the original Anime film that this version is based on I can’t tell you that if it’s an improvement but I doubt have to say I doubt it. This Ghost in the Shell has almost resigned itself to knowing that it was never going to be as good as its predecessor and then spent hour and forty five minutes trying to misdirect the audience with copious amounts of smoke and mirrors and extra helpings of ‘oohhh look at the shiny, shiny we have over here.’ The screenplay just didn’t really work for me at all. I didn’t feel any connection with the Major or what happened to her. Even to the point of when they did delve into her backstory, I was left thinking that it just felt cold and empty. The best way I could describe this is by saying that if you imagine that Ghost in the Shell is a jigsaw. Now, as with all jigsaws you go through and find all the edges or in this case you make sure your cornerstone and key components are in place. You go out and make sure that you’ve got your acting talent in place, there’s a director that you trust to spend your money and an effects team that can produce the look you’re after. So you have your jigsaw border in place and you start off with the best of intentions and try to fill in the middle. But the problem you find is that nothing seems to want to fit with anything else. No matter how you try and lay it out, none of your pieces will connect with what’s next to it. Or to put it another way, Ghost in the Shell never really becomes the sum of its parts. The supporting cast are a talented group but even the great Juliette Binoche seems to be phoning this performance in. The other notable actor that pops up is Michael Pitt as Kuzo. Fans of Hannibal will certainly know that he is capable of acting when the occasion and material calls for it but here he seems to be playing a bad guy that’s about as scary as a seven year old using ‘my dad’s bigger than your dad’ as an intimidation tactic. There also seems to just bit a hint of apathy that runs throughout the film and an undercurrent of detachment in everyone ones performance that makes Ghost in the Shell hard to like.

In closing I’ll say this. I don’t know if it’s because of the casting issues or just because it doesn’t hold up well as a film but I suspect we won’t be seeing another live action Anime title for a while. Bad press certainly hasn’t helped here but I’m not sure that’s entirely to blame for low turnout and the financial pasting Ghost in the Shell is currently taking. It is worth a look and you’re unlikely to see a better looking film anytime soon but unfortunately it’s hard to give this anything other than a disappointing two out of five. There is a case to be made for it to be a three star film but only with a very strong prevailing wind and a liberal interpretation of what qualifies as acceptable…

Twitter Review:
Too much shell & not enough ghost. Nice to look at but then again so are mirrors.
#DigitalLookAnalogueExecution

Useful Links:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219827/?ref_=nv_sr_1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4VmJcZR0Yg
http://www.empireonline.com/movies/ghost-shell-2/review/

Godzilla

Up from the depths, 

Thirty stories high, 

Breathing fire, 

His head in the sky, 

Godzilla! Godzilla! Godzilla and…………………………Walter White.

For those of you old enough, or young enough for that matter, to remember the Hanna-Barbera cartoon from the late seventies and early eighties, you will of course remember the above lyrics (Replace Walter White with the lesser spotted Godzooky). The cartoon in question ran for twenty six half hour episodes and basically ran along the same premise of bad guy/bad thing would turn up and create havoc. The captain of the boat, or should that be Hydrofoil, the Calico would press a little red button on his “Summon Godzilla Utility Belt” and hay presto, one green thirty story high lizard would turn up, breath fire, occasionally shoot lasers from his eyes because you know, large lizards can do that (jumping on the Superman bandwagon if you ask me) and generally save the day before disappearing back into whatever ocean they happened to be floating through at the time. 

Now I can happily report that the new incarnation of Japans very own Incredible Hulk directed by the more than competent Brit Gareth Edwards is to the old cartoon what Ronald Emmerich’s 1998 Godzilla is to highbrow, Oscar winning entertainment. 

Now I have a problem and before anyone else says it, yes I have more than one. However this particular problem centres on how to tell you about Godzilla without venturing into major spoiler territory. This problem is further compounded by Warner Brothers marketing of the film and also all of its trailers. So if you plan on seeing this film please don’t read any further until you have. 

(Waits for everyone to come back………. So how about that local sports team then?............Ok, I’m not lingering around this keyboard any longer, this blog wont write itself)

Right, there really is now way of getting around this so I’m just going to state for the record that the titular big G of this film is actually the good guy. That’s right, the good guy. In a move that I never saw coming they’ve taken Godzilla and turned him into the hero of the piece. I haven’t felt this disappointed or lied too since I found out that naked Wednesdays weren’t compulsory. 

The problem is that ever since the first trailers were released, we the public have been duped into thinking that Godzilla was hell bent on mass destruction and had to be stopped at all costs, because you know, that’s what he does!

Having just re-watched the last trailer that was released earlier this year, it is my sad duty to report that nearly every shot of city damage, planes being knocked out of the sky and the armed forces basically having their bottoms handed to them is a result of the films real bad guys. Two other rather large monsters that are called MUTO’s. Which as far as I can recall stands for “Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism”. 

These two monsters, which buy the way look like giant staple extractors with legs, thrive on nuclear energy and also happen to be very much in love. The female MUTO, the larger of the two, has some real anger management issues and isn’t a big fan of being told no. However I am getting ahead of myself here and I need to go back to the beginning to start this story properly.

Our story starts in Japan, Joe and Sandra brody played by Bryan Cranston and Juliette Binoche respectively, are happily married with a son, Ford Brody. Ford who for most of the film played by the currently much in demand Aaron Taylor-Johnson (He’s rumoured to be in next year’s 50 Shades of Grey and will be in next year’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, playing Quicksilver). It’s just a normal day at the home of the Brody’s apart from it being Joe’s birthday, which he seems to have forgotten. However because of a strange set of seismic readings that seems to be getting closer to the nuclear power plant where they both work, they trundle off to their place of employment , leaving number one son at home and before you can say “by jingo, I think that’s a major nuclear disaster” there’s a major nuclear disaster. 

This leaves one of Ford’s parents dead. Spoiler alert: It isn’t Bryan Cranston.

The story the jumps forward fifteen years and we find Ford currently serving in the American armed forces and as luck would have it his primary job is to do with the disposal of bombs in one form or another. This just happens to come in handy in the climax of the film, but before you can say that’s a tad convenient I’ll say it for you, “That’s a tad convenient….” The film does suffer a lot from these types of “Oh really???” moments. A child rescued by Ford in a MUTO attack in Hawaii is reunited with his parents the day after as they just happen to be walking past at the right time. Another Father and daughter manage to evade an incoming Tsunami and all the destruction that comes along with it by running into a local shop that seems to have been fitted with the latest and greatest in Tsunami proof shop front glass. 

Having returned home on leave after a year away from his wife and child Ford receives a phone call that his Dad has been arrested entering the exclusion zone that has been set up around the decimated nuclear plant. Ford hops on the first available plane, with some persuasion form his wife, and heads of to Tokyo to find out what’s going on. Once there Joe manages to, and I’m not really sure how, convince Ford that he needs answers about his wife’s death and the only way to get these answers is heading back into the exclusion zone once again. 

What follows is the discovery of the first MUTO, the male. It’s been feeding of the damaged reactor and growing in a cocoon of sorts over the previous fifteen years and as luck would have it just happens to hatch as Joe and Ford get there. It promptly escapes from and makes a beeline for the water…… 

No I’m going to stop with the plot breakdown, partly because I never normally give everything away when I’m writing these blogs but I think mostly just down to the fact that what follows makes about as much sense as cheese socks. Don’t get me wrong though, I don’t hate this film. I do think that it does suffer a lot from a poor script and there’s so much going on at times that it feels a bit bloated. In the same way that 2007’s Spiderman 3 had too many villains on the screen for its own good Godzilla relies far too much on its visuals. Again don’t get me wrong, some of the CGI in this film is spectacular but it seems to be at the expense of other key elements like character depth and Logic. Ken Watanabe plays a scientist that never really has that much to do and is largely wasted as an actor. What also doesn’t help is having the emotional peek of the film on ten minutes in. It’s almost an uphill battle to get the film to engage with the audience after that. 

As for Godzilla himself I’ll say this. He’s not on screen anywhere near as much as he should be and at times it feels like he’s treated like a background extra. It’s only when he gets to slug it out with the MUTO’s that he really comes into his own. As with the cartoon from the eighties his reincarnation of Godzilla also breaths fire or if you prefer, has atomic breath, and it what is another very cool visual his tail lights up internally when he’s about to let loose with the blue flames. 

I’ll finish by saying this. Godzilla is a flawed film. At times you struggle to work out why certain characters do what they do. Reasoning and understanding from the viewer does not seem to be required for the 123 minutes you’ll be sat in front of the screen. 

At the end of the film most of San Francisco is levelled by the big three-way fight to the finish. Godzilla must kill hundreds if not thousands of people during this fight but is still hailed as the hero.  It’s also worth noting that if you were to remove the human element from this film it wouldn’t change its outcome one little bit. There will almost certainly be a sequel to Godzilla and when that magnificent day does occur I really hope they’ll have spent some of its budget on a screenplay that doesn’t make me leave the cinema confused and disappointed. 

Twitter Review:

An odd film with a sting in its tail. No sense of a real story or character arc. No humans required in it or to watch it. 

#MonstersLostAtSea

Useful Links:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0831387/?ref_=nv_sr_1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIu85WQTPRc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBwsUD7jYCI