Ghost in the Shell

You already knew that, though. There has been some controversy over the casting of non-Asian actors.

When the comic first appeared, some of these issues were cutting edge but they have been so thoroughly hashed out in so many movies (and in real life) that most of it is as outdated as a VHS video of “WarGames”. A Hollywood-made re-imagining of the iconic 1995 Japanese anime movie of the same name, “Ghost in the Shell” was always going to have trouble justifying itself: How do you serve die-hard fans of the original while also enticing an audience unfamiliar with the source material? Nominal questions about the true nature of The Major are stand-ins for bigger themes – technological intrusion into the human realm, and whether a line can even be drawn between humans and the technology we create. Known as the Major by her colleagues (led by the wonderfully stoic Japanese star “Beat” Takeshi Kitano), Mira is the first of her kind, but as she’s assigned to investigate a spate of assassinations in the East Asian metropolis in which the film is set, doubts about her own origins, and hints of a vast conspiracy, send her on a quest to find out who or what she really is.

Narratively, “Ghost in the Shell” is rather tiresome, in large part because of the many movies that have copied the anime original so ingeniously. Since 1995 we’ve had The Matrix trilogy, Minority Report and even “Westworld” on television.

Finally, there’s the pretty sick water fight scene that’s been a highlight of pretty much every trailer. But she mostly takes her orders from Aramaki (Takeshi Kitano), a Zen security chief.

It’s unimaginative, uninteresting and so unoriginal that I actually found myself wondering if this movie had been left to rot in a studio vault for a decade and a half before it was released. That leaves less room for the philosophical musings of the original, and places greater emphasis on plot twists that aren’t particularly shocking, many courtesy of cybernetic villain Kuze (Michael Pitt). The rest of the characters are lifeless, and for all the exposition in the film’s opening, the plot races along so quickly that it hardly makes sense.

“Ghost in the Shell” moves.

In her latest film ‘Ghost in the Shell’ she plays a cyborg called the Major who leads a counter cyber-terrorism team. Here those ideas are presented with painfully on-the-nose, poorly written dialogue. And Major has a partner, Batou (Pilou Asbæk).

This March seems to be the month for remaking animated classics into live-action films.

Scarlett Johansson was memorable if invisible as the voice of an operating system that falls in love with Joaquin Phoenix in Her.

Story problems aside, Ghost in the Shell is visually attractive. There are a host of side characters who flit in and out, but the only memorable one is the guy who gets his eyes blown off, because who doesn’t remember that?

The fact that Major’s synthetic skin is something between a patchwork of eggshells and a smoothed over version of Johansson’s physique does tamp down the voyeurism factor for grown-ups, however.

Naturally, any Ghost in the Shell sequel will be dependent on what happens at the box office, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Johnasson’s Major come back for more – post-credits scene be damned. This was thanks to the advanced artificial intelligence technology of Hanka Robotics. They’re hacking into the brains of these Hanka employees! Why, exactly? The film isn’t interested in exploring that. If you’re anxious you may forget the name of the movie you’re watching, the writers have been kind enough to use the words “ghost” and “shell” about 300 times a piece throughout the script. Where she is a robot with a human brain, he is a human with mechanical parts. It undermines and devalues her journey.

Visually the film is wonderful. It didn’t need to give Major a backstory and it didn’t need to say anything intellectual. Ghost in the Shell is everything you’ve seen before.