Ghost in the Shell

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          G-----------PG----------PG13-----------R------NC17

Brought to us by the same person who did Appleseed and New Dominion Tank Police.

It is the future in Newport city and the Information Age is in full swing. World wide computer networks stretch to all corners of the globe and no one is not touched by its influence.

Persons from all walks of life jack into the Net with their ghost.

In this world major advances in cybernetics have occurred. It is not uncommon for persons to be augmented to great degrees, sometimes to the point of having their minds merged with a cybernetic shell.

One such person is Major Motoko Kusanagi, a member of an elite special security force.

Amide all the information on the Net emerges something that had never existed before..... A Ghost without a body.

The Major can not help but investigate and protect this Ghost, even at great personal cost.

I really enjoyed Ghost in the Shell. It is fine cyberpunk and well worth seeing if one is any fan of the cyberpunk genre.

[David Eisman (malerik@jonction.net) had something to say about Ghost in the Shell. Here is his review]

This is a classic case of a product not being able to live up to its hype. The supposed "animated cyberpunk event of the decade" is well, boring. This is one of those films that you get really psyched for but after it's over it leaves you saying...huh? The story is for all intensive purposes a well conceived and well-rounded tale, however somewhere in the mix this film zigs where it should have zagged. It goes from an interesting sci-fi/cyberpunk film, with obvious heroes and villains to a philosophical debate on the nature of the human soul and the age old question "What is Life?"

This movie overcomplicates itself to the point of the viewer having to go back frequently to make sure he/she did not miss anything. The main character's long and deep monologues get real old real fast. Action wise, this movie just does not have enough, although what action there is isn't bad. From an artistic standpoint the animation is pretty good, although some characters throughout the film seem to have trouble with simple movements. The computer generated segments more than make up for these oversights. This is a pretty long film, so viewers who want lots of action and violence will probably not want to sit through it. Looking at Ghost in the Shell purely as a medium for a message to and about modern society I would say that it's a triumph. However as an animated action film for the nineties it's a failure. This is a film that belongs in a philosophical sociology debate, not in the hands of an amateur animation collector.

Animated quality is very good, the computer scenes are wild, giving Ghost in the Shell an 8.5

Overall though, this movie drags its feet way too much for it to be all that it promised. Sorry, a 6 is the best I can do.

[I, Brad, have a short response to Dave's review]

It should be noted that classic cyberpunk is quite introspective. For examples, look at Bladerunner and Armitage III. Bladerunner dealt very much with the meaning of being alive and why it is important to have memories. Nearly the entire point of Armitage III is about the meaning of being alive. I personally thought that Ghost in the Shell was a very good example of this genre and did not find it over complex in any way.