Ghost In The Shell (**1/2)

There's nothing particularly wrong with Ghost In The Shell. The effects are convincing, the makeup is spectacular, and the action often time will keep you intrigued. I wasn't necessarily bored during the film, nor did I find an urge to get up an leave. After leaving, however, I found my mind blank - awash to what I had just seen. In the end, this is as forgettable as they come. It's a recycled hash of so many other films that I defy you to distinguish it from the likes of The Matrix or Blade Runner in 5 year's time.

The whitewashing of Asian-inspired cinema continues as Scarlett Johansson is cast as Major, a half-robot / half-human crime fighter inspired by a famous Japanese manga. Prior to the film, Major was kidnapped by the government and her brain was put inside a robotic form. This is the evolution of AI. At one point in the movie our suspicions are confirmed when Major visits her long-lost mother. We learn her name is Motoku, and that this government organization (much like Hollywood) found it more reasonable to employ a white woman to play what is so clearly an ill-fit.

The doctor who looks over Major (Juliette Binoche) explains in the first scene how Major suffered an accident and only her brain could be salvaged. She quite literally says "your body was damaged but your ghost survived, so we built you a new shell." Not only is that the most medically-inept explanation that spoon feeds the audience the title, but it's a key point that makes this movie so disappointing: weak writing. Many scenes seem content by explaining what is happening instead of showing us, coupled with such on the nose dialogue, it becomes a silly exercise in simply focusing on the visuals.

I mentioned Blade Runner, and wow does this feel like a familiar setting. Whether it's the sky-high billboards or the holographic human beings set against the city's silhouette, it's a stunning image that nonetheless harkens back to more memorable creations, namely the Ridley Scott classic. In many ways, the two stories share very similar ideas of 'what makes a human a human,' so for the designs to so closely echo each other, it feels more lazy than visually-stunning.

The plot is meandering and the characters are practically paper-thin. Scarlett Johannson carries the film as a true Hollywood star might, and yet her face is in a constant state of either confusion or deep thought (sometimes it's hard to determine which). What the film mostly lacked is a sense of fun, a sense of discovery. I suppose the movie would ultimately classify as a simple mystery plot in which Major seeks to discover her identity. What's wrong with having a little fun with it along the way? Not once does a character break a smile, or make a joke, or smile, or say anything that doesn't sound the slightest robotic. By the end of it, there's really only one word to sum it all up: "meh."