Ghost in the Shell
(1995) is an anime classic directed Mamoru Oshii that is an adaptation of a
manga of the same name by Masamune Shirow. The film follows Motoko Kusanagi
(aka The Major) and her team as part of a security agency known as Section 9 as
they track a mysterious hacker known as the Puppet Master. The Japanese
language version stars the vocal talents of Atsuko Tanaka, Akio Otsuka, Iemasa
Kayumi, Koichi Yamadera, and Tamio Oki. The English dubbed version stars Mimi
Woods, Richard Epcar, Tom Wyner, Christopher Joyce, and William Frederick
Knight.
Ghost in the Shell
is, without a doubt, one of the most influential and well made films in modern
science fiction. It is far from a perfect movie, but it thrives on exploring
complex themes effectively and being visually brilliant. It stumbles in terms
of its pacing at times and is occasionally reliant on complex dialogue to
explore its themes rather than having them evolve naturally out of the story.
The most obvious strength in the film is its ability to
establish an interesting world that draws you in immediately and provides a
space in which you can explore complex themes of what it means to be human.
This story is great and manages to find a neat balance of action and think-piece.
This is definitely hard to achieve but somehow this story really lent itself to
that. I think it’s ability to be really tight in terms of runtime and
constantly move from event to event while spouting immense amounts of information
at you was really effective. This kind of construction has been incredibly
influential in terms of think-y action/sci-fi and for good reason. It works and
this film remains engaging on the first watch and many re-watches to come.
The film is also visually incredible. The animation in this
film is absolutely jaw-dropping. Whether it was the beautiful artwork for the
active camouflage, the subtlety the characters show throughout, or the
unforgettable imagery, this film hits it out of the park in terms of animation
quality. It also manages to maintain a frenetic action style throughout with its
animation which keeps your eyes glued to the screen and consistently intrigued.
I also found the score of Ghost in the Shell to be incredibly haunting and powerful. With
unforgettable choral work, this score captivates you and really stands out from
most film scores (especially in the science fiction genre). It’s not a
bombastic score that you might listen to for fun one day, but it is extremely
effecting and did its job perfectly in engaging me with the film.
Outside of those massive strengths, the movie stumbles by
feeling weirdly paced and being too dialogue reliant. While it is always
forward moving and tight in its runtime, it is a movie that feels much longer
than it really is because of how slow some of the in-between moments become. This
is especially pronounced in the back half of the film which really makes you
tire out into the credits rather that pushing through to the conclusion which
hurt my viewing experience.
Overall, this is a great film and one that has rightly been
a hugely influential film on many science fiction staples that followed. The
complex themes are interesting and you could talk about them for days which is
truly the sign of great underlying storytelling. It is also a beautiful anime
on top of it all. But for some small pacing issues and excessive reliance on
dialogue, this would be a masterpiece and, regardless, it is definitely a film
you should seek out and watch.
Ryan’s Score: 8/10
No comments:
Post a Comment