Ghost in the Shell is the latest example of American filmmakers sticking their hands into the Japanese cinema cookie jar and the results being less than subpar. The latest Hollywood reboot takes over original source material by Masamune Shirow, who wrote the anime film that was released in 1995 and produced a beloved follow-up series. When this happens, the creativity deprived suits out west need to take it, recycle the good parts of the script, and churn out a pointless adaptation that manufactures an eye roll and shoulder shrug instead of wondrous charm.

Scarlett Johansson (she’s American for the record) plays a cyber-enhanced super soldier called Major, who tracks down the bad guys who inhibit the futuristic world dominated by high tech companies doing as they please with poor humans to gain power and turn a massive profit. They take human brains and plant them in a synthetic body made in a lab, and are enhanced in a way to which they can take bullets and explosives without skipping a beat, move lightning quick, and hack into other people’s minds in order to track their location. Big governments cashing checks via the weight of human souls, and eventually, someone will notice. Major is a ghost of human mind stuck in a fake shell with one purpose: take out the trash and don’t ask questions. (more…)