Ghost in the Shell

With an icy sheen but also a thumping pulse, the live-action Ghost in the Shell steps into a world where humanity and machines make for increasingly frequent yet not necessarily comfortable bedfellows. While similarly merging flesh and blood with technology, thankfully that’s not an outcome shared by the Rupert Sanders (Snow White and the Huntsman)-directed film itself. Within the storyline, organic brains are spliced into robotic bodies, an advancement that brings Major Mira Killian (Scarlett Johansson, Sing) to life. The first cyborg of her kind, she’s informed of her fate by Dr. Oulet (Juliette Binoche, Slack Bay), before being dispatched to track and kill terrorists in a secretive government unit called Section 9.

As Oulet’s clumsy explanation stresses the terms that give the feature its title, it’s easy to be cautious of this adaptation of Masamune Shirow’s 1989 manga series, and the 1995 and 2004 anime films that followed. When Sanders eagerly replicates exact shots from his predecessors early in the proceedings, and recreates the familiar cyberpunk vibe as well, feeling the same wariness is also understandable. And yet, his addition to the fold proves lavish but not slavish as it manages to equally takes its cues from and carve its own path through Ghost in the Shell mythology — including finding an intriguing narrative inclusion that overtly references its specific cultural changes in its casting, aka whitewashing, plus the general criticisms of its status as a Hollywood remake of an acclaimed Japanese effort.

Though created by Oulet for robotics corporation Hanka, and overseen by Section 9 chief Aramaki (‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano, While the Women Are Sleeping), Major isn’t easily controlled; indeed, after disobeying the latter’s orders on a mission, she’s soon hot on the trail of an assassin that’s killing off executives from the former company. The hefty, kindly Batou (Pilou Asbæk, The Great Wall) stands by her side, but shadowy hacker Kuze (Michael Carmen Pitt, Criminal) clouding her search, as do memory glitches that amplify her increasing suspicions that all is not quite right.

With fleshing out the source material’s concept with the blockbuster fodder du jour — an origin story — might be the obvious aim of the feature, Ghost in the Shell’s balance of old and new story elements achieves more than it might seem. Consider the film’s constantly ability to do just that consistently for its 106-minute running time its biggest surprise. Working with a screenplay by Jamie Moss (Street Kings), William Wheeler (Queen of Katwe) and Ehren Kruger (Transformers: Age of Extinction), Sanders deviates from the expected in terms of both the content that precedes it and the generic sci-fi/action mould, blending its series and genre stimuli into a sleek, intriguing new vessel. And yet, it still nods to its anime forebears not necessarily in all of the right places, but with purpose rather than merely compiling a frame-by-frame remake filled with the expected spider tanks, garbage trucks barrelling into cars, and Major leaping from lofty buildings. 

In fact, in visual terms in everything from Major’s shapely, beige robot torso to the texture of grimy alley walls she stalks, Ghost of the Shell offers a sight to behold through cinematographer Jess Hall’s (The Foreigner) lens: one that’s suitably gloomy in its shades given its premise, but simultaneously glossy thanks to its futuristic, tech-heavy, unnamed Asian metropolis setting, as well as filled with affection for the original two movies. Once again, echoes of other comparable fare — Blade Runner, which pre-dates the manga; The Matrix, which is widely regarded to have taken inspiration from it — remain evident, without overshadowing the end product thanks to the imagery’s all-round dazzling display.

In addition the tonally appropriate score by Lorne Balfe (The LEGO Batman Movie) and Clint Mansell (High-Rise), the other aspect of the production that Sanders uses astutely and to his advantage is Johansson, who comes to the material with a recent pedigree in playing with blank-faced mystery courtesy of Lucy and Under the Skin. As with much of the film, it might be impossible to view Ghost in the Shell without flickering thoughts of her other roles bubbling up; however, when she sells the conflict lingering beneath her awakening human-android hybrid’s surface, she sells the feature’s emotional core. She’s in good company, too, in what becomes more than a ghost of or shell made from its influences; the part of Oulet may serve the narrative better than Binoche’s talents, but she gives it greater nuance than it perhaps deserves on paper, while Asbæk is endearingly dependable breathing tenderness into Batou, and Kitano — speaking only in Japanese and often winking to his own considerable cinematic back catalogue — steals every scene he’s in.

Rating: 3 ½ stars out of 5

Ghost in the Shell
Director: Rupert Sanders     
USA, 2017, 106 mins

Release date: March 30
Distributor: Paramount
Rated: M