G h o s t in the S h e l l

This one seems to be quite popular, but there are a lot of people who don't like it, so I decided to check it out. I was hoping for a lot when I saw the quote "The best Movie Since Akira"...

After all everyone had said about this movie, Ghost in the Shell was a big dissapiontment for me. It's an okay movie, and I'd probably enjoyed it more if I wasn't expecting so much from it, but "The best Movie since Akira" is definitely what this is NOT.

This film has an extremely complex storyline which is similar to that of The Matrix, and the animation and artwork are superb, some of the backgrounds here could have been used in a live action movie when they use paintings. I did often find myself gaping at the wonderful animation and backgrounds andthe atmosphere of a few scenes, but this movie just seems to be too slow, and much too complicated to enjoy. About 75% of the movie is verbal explanation of what's going on, or telepathic communication which was very annoying, and at some parts I was just wishing they would shut up and get on with it.

The action scenes are okay but some are quite wierd. Major, the cyborg has "Thermoptic Camouflage" which makes her totally invisible to the naked eye, so you can probably guess that there are a few scenes with someone being thrown around by what seems to be no-one. There are some piontless scenes where, instead of wasting their time on them, the creators could have made more action scenes. There's a bit which I liked where an arachnid tank (Typical Masamune Shirow stuff) shooting at major in this old place, pretty much blowing the place apart, with this very atmospheric BGM, then major uses her thermoptics and goes to open it up, but because it's too heavy for her, her muscles grow and swell up, and then her body just rips apart, wires everywhere, but then the scene is totally ruined by an attempted witty comment "Major, are you alright? You don't look so good..." - "I've had better Days" ...Towards the end, there is a lot of still frames and lack of movement with just a lot of dialogue. The poor animators must have been dying! ^_^

Overall, this film's good to watch once, but Ghost in the Shell really isn't all it's hyped up to be.

Rating out of 5: **½
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