'Ghost in the Shell' presents future look at ugly current life
I saw this movie in Russian. Something may have been lost in translation.
“Ghost in the Shell” is ugly. From its over-lived in city to its piled up cemetery to its skyscraper tall hologram ads and its hologram koi fish, this film is not a place that anyone would want to try to live in. This is Dystopia at its most disturbing, annoying and grotesque vision. There isn’t a quiet place to rest your head anywhere; no place to think. It is a place where everything is moving and everything is vying for your attention. With people piled up on top of one another and the stunning garishness of its makeup, there is only one name that this city should be given – Internet.
Whether or not that is what struck you most, the vision of the Internet come to life would look like this film if this film had the budget to step it up a couple of magnitudes. Still, if you don’t think about it, you might be able to notice that none of the characters seem to have any feeling for one another beyond what comes with working as a team in a dangerous situation. This might be enough to explain the motivation of everyone, but it can leave a viewer feeling a little flat.
Ghost in the Shell isn’t just about the background city and what it invokes. Scarlett Johansson does a passable job of playing the title character – a human mind planted in a robot body. She seems smaller in this film than in other films where she has played a superhuman being, including Her. She keeps her shoulders hunched up throughout the film and walks like a man on a mission. There’s lots of talking and lots of technology. There is also plenty of violence, stretching to ultra-violence without the usual gore, except for the robot gore. Still the imagery is enough to give anyone who this nightmares about the possible future this points to. It’s even scarier if you start to realize the future is now.
See Romney's Review of Ghost in the Shell (2017)
“Ghost in the Shell” is ugly. From its over-lived in city to its piled up cemetery to its skyscraper tall hologram ads and its hologram koi fish, this film is not a place that anyone would want to try to live in. This is Dystopia at its most disturbing, annoying and grotesque vision. There isn’t a quiet place to rest your head anywhere; no place to think. It is a place where everything is moving and everything is vying for your attention. With people piled up on top of one another and the stunning garishness of its makeup, there is only one name that this city should be given – Internet.
Whether or not that is what struck you most, the vision of the Internet come to life would look like this film if this film had the budget to step it up a couple of magnitudes. Still, if you don’t think about it, you might be able to notice that none of the characters seem to have any feeling for one another beyond what comes with working as a team in a dangerous situation. This might be enough to explain the motivation of everyone, but it can leave a viewer feeling a little flat.
Ghost in the Shell isn’t just about the background city and what it invokes. Scarlett Johansson does a passable job of playing the title character – a human mind planted in a robot body. She seems smaller in this film than in other films where she has played a superhuman being, including Her. She keeps her shoulders hunched up throughout the film and walks like a man on a mission. There’s lots of talking and lots of technology. There is also plenty of violence, stretching to ultra-violence without the usual gore, except for the robot gore. Still the imagery is enough to give anyone who this nightmares about the possible future this points to. It’s even scarier if you start to realize the future is now.
See Romney's Review of Ghost in the Shell (2017)