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It is the year 2032 and the Earth is a world where the few
remaining humans coexist with artificial imitations, cyborgs
and robots. Batou, a cyborg detective and his partner, Togusa
are charged with investigating the bizarre case of a malfunctioning
female sex droid that has murdered its owner. As they delve
deeper into the investigation they are forced to confront
violent yakuza thugs, devious hackers, influential government
bureaucrats and powerful corporate criminals...
Ghost
in the Shell 2: Innocence is
a strange movie, and one that is difficult to review objectively.
To
be perfectly honest this is not a film that you should watch
if you know nothing about the history of Ghost in the Shell.
While the majority of the storyline is simple to follow, the
conclusion will leave you scratching your head.
The
plot is not overly original either - it's not a million miles
away from Blade Runner, for starters. But by far the
biggest problem I had was the director's insistence on using
three very distinct forms of animation styles.
I
have to confess that I am not a fan of mix & match animation.
For me part of the magic of manga movies is leaving behind
the fact that the characters exist as drawings, or as a computer
file. I like to immerse myself in the story. However, with
this movie, it's constantly being shoved in the viewers fact
that this is an "animated" picture. One minute we
have traditional drawings of the characters, the next the
background scenes are CGI images, and then we have scenes
where actors have obviously been filmed and the illustrators
have used this footage to make their drawings appear more
natural. This, for me, detracted from the plot and I found
it painfully frustrating.
Another
problem was that director Mamoru Oshii seemed uncertain whether
he was making a straight forward futuristic tale, or directing
an arthouse movie. We start with a fairly typical futuristic
cop narrative, but by the end it's become a surrealist nightmare
for no real reason other than, I presume, to garner favour
with the critics - the majority of whom won't have a clue
what they've just witnessed.
Extras include The Making Of Innocence featurette;
audio commentary by Mamoru Oshii and Toshihiko Nishikubo (animation
director); a UK exclusive featurette Face To Face Interview
With Mamoru Oshii; Sneak Peak at Ghost In The Shell
Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig Volume 2, Episode 5; full-length
Japanese trailer and Manga trailers. As with the previous
Ghost in the Shell releases the feature is present on
both discs - with the version on disc 2 having a DTS soundtrack.
To
be honest this is not as good as I was hoping. In fact, it
barely scrapes above average.
Ray
Thompson
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