Major Minus
By Dwayne Tillman
We’ve seen a great deal of existential sci-fi entertainment in recent times, from HBO’s excellent Westworld, to the upcoming Blade Runner 2049, a follow up to what is essentially the existential cyborg film of which everything else of its ilk will be compared to. That is certainly a film that will cross your mind more than once whilst watching Rupert Sanders’ Ghost in the Shell, and will have your mind thinking “I really would love to be watching Blade Runner right now instead of this dull, joyless and uneventful slog of a film.” For Ghost in the Shell ’17 is exactly that: a dull, joyless and uneventful slog of a film that gives you nothing other than shallow visual pleasure.
Set in the near future, this Shell, which for the uninitiated is based on both the manga and animated film from the 90’s, follows Major (Scarlett Johansson), a half-human, half-robot who is manufactured to be an indestructible soldier with the ability to destroy anything in her way. In a world where terrorism is now the hacking into of people’s minds to control them, Kuze (Michael Pitt) hacks into Major’s mind/system to turn her against the state. Major discovers before too long that her life was stolen from her rather than saved, and begins a mission to recover her own identity and to stop the people who did this to her.
I will start off by saying that Ghost in the Shell genuinely looks absolutely incredible. The cityscapes are downright stunning. There is a great mix of convincing CG and animatronics from the great Weta Workshop that do an excellent job at immersing you into the world and never come across as distracting. This is also terrifically paired with Clint Mansell’s pulsing synth score. However, this can only hold the film up for so long, and it’s not too long before its hollow, vapid centre comes to the forefront.
The most straight-forward way that I can define Shell is that this film essentially has all of the substance of a lavish perfume commercial, albeit a really expensive, cyberpunk inspired one. Sanders, who directed 2012’s Snow White and the Huntsman to a similarly hollow effect, has no directorial flair. For a major Hollywood sci-fi action film, there is a significant lack of any excitement or pulse. In a more inspired director’s hands, you could maybe define as a sort of haunting introspective approach. The film just drones on for 106 minutes like an insipid Ed Sheeran album on repeat. Even the random bursts of action (you couldn’t call them action scenes) do little to quicken the pulse, and features some of the most boringly choreographed action I’ve seen in sometime.
The major (sorry) problem is that there is next to zilch actual storytelling going on here. The film just washes over you without any sense of impact. I think the writers thought that throwing a whole bunch of expositional dialogue disguised as ‘smart’ technological jargon was supposed to engage us. Sorry, Ehren Kruger and co., it doesn’t work that way. In addition, the film seems to completely miss the point of what the manga and original film were doing. Those were complex, intellectual and haunting explorations into existentialism. Here, things are dumbed down to a generic sci-fi action shooter that touches on familiar themes and ideas that you’ve seen done a lot better and more interesting.
I can’t talk about this film without addressing the elephant in the room: the claims of whitewashing that have plagued its every moment of existence. And believe it or not, its whitewashing somehow is even more problematic in the context of the film. I won’t spoil it for you here, but it’s apparent in the films first few minutes and will become distracting. Even if you take the stance (which admittedly the director of the original, Mamoru Oshii, has backed) that she is a cyborg and her physical form has no racial bounds, I feel this hints at the bigger picture in regards to Hollywood. In addition, for a film set in Japan, there is a distinct lack of, um, Japanese people. All the Honda product placement and neon lights isn’t suitable substitute, guys.
Whitewashing aside, Johansson is her usual reliably compelling self, but you can’t help but feel like she deserved more to work with. The problem is that Major’s character in this film is given no personality. Yes, obviously she is an android, but to go back to the original film, we still felt for her and got a sense of character progression. Here, there is a lack of that, and instead comes across as a blank state, meaning that Johansson, who has done this sort of thing before to great effect in Under the Skin and Lucy, leaves something to be desired.
I wish I could say that Ghost in the Shell is worth the ticket price alone for its visual splendour, but there is just not enough elsewhere in the film for me to say that it’s any sort of satisfying experience. It’s too dull, too shallow and too humourless. Half a point for not being excessively long in the age of the 2 and a half hour plus blockbuster, but this Shell needed a hell of a lot more ghost.