Ghost in the Shell

The first time I saw this, I took a break after the first part to share my thoughts in the thread. This is something I usually don't do for multi-segment movies; I appreciated the effort and the sheer cinematic splendor it boasted a lot more than I liked it. Finishing the movie confirmed this for me, as I found that while it excelled in almost every category, it just didn't grab my attention the way other favorites of mine had. It was brilliant, no question about it, but it was brilliant in a general way and I didn't give it a lot of thought afterwards. It's amazing how much you can miss the first time you watch something.

This is, quite simply, the best action movie in the history of 3DMM. There are very few creations released to the community that I would classify as films, and Ghost in the Shell leaps above and beyond the criteria I'd set for such a description. There may be better and more interesting action sequences in the various PAMs scattered across major 3DMM websites, but this is an action movie that actually means something, with shootouts and chases and explosions that aren't there simply for their own sake. On my second viewing, I sat down with the intention of thinking of the movie in terms of how each scene and animation was constructed. I gave up five minutes in. The techniques disappear into the rest of the experience, and it was impossible to see anything but the movie as a whole; it's one of those rare movies that makes you forget that you're watching something that was made in 3DMM. I was astounded.

On my first viewing, I wasn't sure I'd be able to enjoy the story entirely on its own terms. I was almost convinced I'd be aware of the fact that this wasn't Red and Spencer's world, that no matter how well it was done, the fact that Ghost in the Shell is another person's creation would always be sitting there in the back of my mind. These issues were silenced by the end of the first part -- they may not have invented all of the characters or plot elements involved, but the way they're used separates this from the original anime entirely. It's a re-imagining of how the anime's world was built up, and has it's own idea of who the characters are, what concepts are important, and what's going to happen. And unlike the original anime, which I don't exactly recommend, the ideas are really worth thinking about, and make the action that backs them up (or knowingly contradicts them, as they case may be) that much more interesting.

I'm not sure I could give you a summary of what it's about if I tried. Set some time after the events of the anime, Ghost in the Shell quickly dispenses with its ties to what happened there, requiring no previous viewing to understand anything. The plot is intricate without being convoluted, and surprisingly easy to follow even if you don't know what a "ghost" or a "shell" is going in -- any terms from the anime are explained perfectly by the context in which they're referred to. We learn of city 'sectors', which apparently develop various forms of cybernetic technology, varying from nanomachines and body part replacements to surveillance robots to peacekeeper androids. These sectors are highly suspicious of each other....you know what, why mince words. They're at war. The plot involves a lot of spying, subterfuge, complicated plots to learn what the other guy is doing, and the ambitions of people who have too much power as it is. There's a lot of musings about the nature of loyalty, of who's manipulating who, and of defining your own rules and boundaries before others define them for you. In a world where your entire body can be replaced as long as your consciousness exists, there's plenty of opportunities for thinking about how much of you is still yours, and Ghost in the Shell doesn't avoid this line of thinking by any means. Even the people who haven't been cybernetically enhanced sometimes recognize that they're just cogs in a machine.

As I mentioned earlier, the cinematic and animation techniques disappear into the overall experience. This doesn't mean you don't notice when something unbelievably cool happens. A lot of reviews have pointed out that a good bit of the first segment seems dated, but I barely noticed it. The opening titles were unbelievable, and the film as a whole mostly keeps up the same level of quality....I'll get into what doesn't later. The second segment of the film is mind-blowing. Two major action sequences, one involving Motoko infiltrating a Sector facility to recover a control chip for a new line of cyborg, and the other involving a faked (or was it faked?) break-in/assassination attempt are brilliantly made and choreographed. This isn't eye-candy and explosions for their own sake, and we're never cheated out of the story in favor of someone getting killed or something getting destroyed just because it would look cool. If it's happening, it means something, and there are so many subtleties and moments of suspense that, when taken in terms of what's happened so far in the plot, everything is that much more resonant than this stuff would have been in something like Texan Silly Boys 2. And the audio....only Final Fantasy: The Ultimate Epic can compete. The music is aural bliss, intertwined in the visuals with utmost care and precision. The sound effects are crisp, clear, and well-placed, never overpowering the scene. And the voice-acting is top-notch and uses a cast so large I lost track of them all.

Warning: Spoilers abound in this paragraph. There are some technical issues I noticed; usually with a film this gigantic and well-made, a few errors here and there are easily forgiven, but a few things bugged me. Katrina's voice work in Shit Happens was much better than it was here. Some voices overlap (were the earlier parts of the movie made on a 98 machine? It's not losing any points over it either way). The third segment climaxed with a lot less of a bang than I'd expected, and the whole sewer action sequence wasn't up to the par of the facility or even the drug deal sequence. I like the fact that it doesn't end with Motoko single-handedly taking down all the bad guys, as this world is far too complex and dystopian to have all its problems solved so easily, but the last fight seems to go on auto-pilot. And while the stuff with the general is cool (I really liked how the mastermind brushes off the complaints of his extremely dangerous-sounding funders, but turns out to be terrified of the general for some reason), I'm not sure what the final secret revealed about him is supposed to imply. So he's been watching Motoko and has her surrogate father bound and gagged at the end of the movie....is he working for Sector 7 or does he have his own agenda? Or is this what we're supposed to wonder about?

When you get right down to it, the fact that the movie raises these questions says a lot about how powerful the whole experience is. Few movies aim this high, and even fewer are this much of a milestone in 3DMM cinema. My hat's off to you guys. Andres, I think you'd better check this one out.

Critical Score: 98/100.
Personal Score: 95/100.