Ghost In The Shell (2017)

Title: Ghost In The Shell

Director: Rupert Sanders

Released: 2017

Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Michael Carmen Pitt, Takeshi Kitano, Pilou Askaek, Chun Han, Juliette Binoche

Plot: In the near future most humans are augmented with cybernetic improvements but Major Mira Killian (Johansson) is the first to combine a cybernetic body with a human brain. Now working as part of the anti-terrorist bureau Section 9 she must track down the hacker Kuze who might hold the screrthe Major’s past.

Review: When it was first announced that they would finally be making the long mooted live-action remake of “Ghost In The Shell” it was of course met with cries of dismay from the fans who could see no way that Hollywood could replicate the cyberpunk tale, especially with its complex plotting and philosophical musing on the existence of a soul. Even if they could they are hardly things which hardly add up to a summer blockbuster which this was being pitched as especially with the casting of Scarlett Johansson as the Major adding to the already rampant assumptions of Hollywood whitewashing especially when many fans were pushing for the much more obvious choice Rinko Kikuchi to play the role.

Directed by Rupert Sanders whose only credit outside of a trio of short films was “Snow White and the Huntsman” which hardly sparked much confidence that this life action version would live up the legacy of the anime which is still regarded as one of the best of all time alongside the likes of “Akira” and “Perfect Blue”. It was of course a pleasant surprise to see Sander not attempting to do a straight remake but at the same time not trying to dumb it down either. If anything it can be seen that Sanders throughout is trying to not only pay homage to the original films director Mamoru Oshii with the inclusion of Oshii’s trademark Basset Hounds and even a nod to “Avalon”.

Shot as a “Blade Runner” style cyberpunk fantasy there are certainly the elements of the Oshii’s vision near future Japan replicated here especially the elements of Hong Kong which made his vision so diffrent and while Sanders vision certainly aims for a more futuristic vision heavily reminiscent of the aforementioned “Blade Runner” but it also seems to draw further inspiration from “Akira” especially with the extensive use of holographic advertisements which at times can prove detrimental as at time it feels like they clutter the landscape rather than adding to it and as such makes you appreciate the more intimate shots from the city streets or building interiors.

Despite the changes throughout there is still a sense of familiarity which runs throughout the film as characters such as the Major’s partner Batou (Asbaek) feel faithfully recreated though his eye implants only look the more questionable here than they did in the anime. ‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano as Section Chief Aramaki though is an inspired piece of casting and unquestionably one of the key things which gave me hope that this wouldn’t be a dumbed down version of the anime. Frustratingly though when it comes to the rest of the Section 9 members they are so thinly sketched its hard to connect with them, making this much more of a buddy cop movie than it should have been.

While I may have had my own doubts of Scarlett Johansson’s ability in the role she really does manage to convincingly pull of the role and certainly a better casting choice than Margot Robbie who was also considered for the role and here she manages to convincingly pull off the detached and almost robotic outlook for the Major despite having a human brain. Infact so impressed with her performance Mamoru Oshii who’d been vocal on his own concerns surrounding the largely western cast gave her performance his own seal of approval and its certainly easy to see why when she is able to replicate so many of the key moments from the original film.

Scrapping the original “Puppet Master” plotline instead the plot here chooses to focus on the background of the Major in perticular the mystery surrounding her origins though the mystery hacker element is now filled by Kuze. We also get minor background details such as how Batou got his cybernetic eyes which I guess is great for anyone who really wanted to know these things. However while seemingly trying to craft his own story within this universe, there is still a large amount of material especially from the original film which has been pasted into the story in particular many of the key scenes such as the dumpster chase and most keyly the Major taking on a spider tank and certainly like so many elements of the film they all look fantastic. At the same time though the plotting can get heavy in places especially with Sanders trying to blend the new and original material which does result in the film certainly being more complex at times than it needed to be.

While there might be numerous nods to the source material it is still best to view this film as being its own entity than a remake, especially when here Sanders has chosen to craft a film with its own unique storyline, rather than adapt the Puppet Master plotline of the original film. This of course is not an issue, especially when the universe already established through the Manga, films and stand alone series (or complex) multiple independent timelines and when viewed this way the film certainly fits into this universe. On its own merits this is certainly an interesting approach to the material and certainly a smarter one than I was expecting to get and seeing what Sanders has established here, actually makes me keen to see him build on this world though whether that will happen or not still remains to be seen. For now though while not perfect certainly interesting enough to make it worth checking out.

Summer Wars

Title: Summer Wars

Director: Mamoru Hosoda

Released: 2009

Starring: Ryunosuke Kamiki, Nanami Sakuraba, Mitsuki Tanimura, Sumiko Fuji, Takahiro Yokokawa

Plot: Kenji (Kamiki) is a high school student with a gift for mathematics who also works as a part-time moderator along with his best friend Takashi (Yokokawa) for the VR World OZ which has replaced the internet for worldwide conectivity. However when an AI called “Love Machine” hacks Kenji’s account her is drawn into a battle with the entity before it takes over OZ.

Review: Following on from the success of “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” Director Mamoru Hosoda here once more returns to give another unique spin on a fantastical subject, having previously combined High School romance with time travel for his previous film, this time he combines elements of a family reunion drama with a tech fantasy.

While it might have been enough to set the film within the virtual world of Oz which is introduced at the start of the film as this sprawling network of information were users create unique avatars which they can then use to interact with other people to play games, socialise or even conduct business there really is no limit to what you can do, all the while watched over by its guardian whales John and Yoko. This of course provides the perfect area for Hosoda to conjurer up any fanatical idea he can think of. Needless to say its rather fitting as we become ever more dependent on living our lives on the net that Hosoda would craft this story which really questions if perhaps with a more fantastical edge what would happen if the network contracted a virus that took it all out.

The other element to the plot concerns Kenji being invited by his friend and fellow student Natsuki (Sakuraba) to her great-grandmother Sakae (Fuji) 90^th birthday being held at her estate, were to his suprise he finds himself introduced to her family as her fiancé. This of course is the least of his worries though as its safe to say that Natsuki’s family are a colourful bunch to say the least as we soon get to discover aswell as how one of them is connected to Love Machine.

The world of OZ while essentially a white background with characters superimposed on the top so that they fly around the central structure of this world and yet its a world which perfectly works for this idea of a super information hub, especially once the battle against Love Machine starts as it becomes one which can be turned suddenly into any structure Hosoda needs and enables him to craft some truly exciting sequences such as showdown between Love Machine and Natsuki’s cousin Kazuma whose avatar King Kazma takes the form of a samurai rabbit.

While the majority of the film takes place in the virtual world we also get a sizeable portion spent with the oddball characters of Natsuki’s family who ultimately become key in beating Love Machine as they perhaps alittle to coincidently all come with either skills or access to resources that Kenji needs and leading to the slightly surreal scenes of a supercomputer suddenly being delivered let alone a ship being dumped in the koi pond to power it and yet somehow none of them are able to chase up a few fans to keep the computer cool leading to the ground instead filling the room with large blocks of ice, which seemed kind of strange considering everything else they’d put together on the fly.

Despite their usefulness the family group I felt could have benefited from losing a couple of members as while on one hand its amusing seeing Kenji trying to deal with this huge group while on the other we end up with several members feeling supplemental and underdeveloped. That being said they are still a colourful group of characters and help hold your interest when not in the virtual world. It can be assumed that the decision to have such a large family unit was derived from Hosoda’s own large family and this ends up just being one of those overly sentimental nods that just doesn’t quite play out.

The animation is unquestionably vibrant throughout with every character being animated it makes it only the more enjoyable to see what each character is doing on the screen, rather than just using looped animations that other productions might use for their background characters. The crispness of the animation is none the more clear than those in the virtual world which at times can feature hundreds of unique characters bringing back fond memories of “Paprika”. Again like our real world characters the avatars we encounter in this world come with their own personalities let alone distinct designs which of course only adds to the scenes when you have large groups on the screen. True a lot of these avatars are more simple designs than those belonging to main characters like Love Machine or Kazuma’s Samurai Rabbit avatar King Kazma.

An entertaining film which with its engaging visuals and colourful characters makes for a great companion piece to the likes of “Paprika” as Hosoda juggles multiple genres to craft a truly fascinating anime which reminds us that anime goes a lot deeper than giant robots, ass kicking schoolgirls and tentacle porn a stereotype which Hosoda seems more than happy to break.

The Lawnmower Man

Title: The Lawnmower Man

Director:  Brett Leonard
Released: 1992
Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Jeff Fahey, Austin O’Brien, Jenny Wright, Geoffrey Lewis, Jeremy Slate, Dean Norris

Plot: Dr. Laurence Angelo (Brosnan) conducts experiments on chimps using a mixture of drugs and Virtual Reality to increase their intelligence as part of  “Project 5”, while constantly fighting with his superiors and their desire to use his research for military purposes. After one of his test chimps escapes and goes on the rampage, Dr. Angelo turns his focus towards testing on humans finding the perfect subject in the slow witted gardener Jobe (Fahey) who is also the titular lawnmower man.  Starting a program of accelerated learning, with Dr. Angelo using the same drugs he had been using on the chimps only with out the aggression factors of the original drugs. Soon it is not long before Jobe’s intelligence has greatly increased to the point were he is able to perform feats such as learning Latin in two hours, while also unlocking telepathic and pyrokinetic  abilities.

Soon Dr. Angelo’s work draws the attention of his superiors who have been keeping tabs on his progress, with the Project Director soon swapping the new drugs for the original “Project 5” ones, which inturn drive Jobe insane with power and on a path of revenge against those wronged him, while searching for a way to reach his final evolutionary state in the Virtual World.

Review:  Although it might be hard believe it now, but when this film was released back in 1992 this film was pretty groundbreaking with it’s use of computer graphics and portrayal of Virtual Reality, with the film in turn sparking a whole craze for Virtual Reality, to the point were VR machines regularly popped up in arcades over charging for the experience, while consoles rushed out supposed VR titles such as “VR Racing” and the still popular “Virtual Fighter”.
 

Essentially a cautionary tale about why man should not play god, the film explores theories regarding the use of Virtual Reality in this case as a way of increasing human intelligence, which at the same time the film explores some pretty big Cyber punk ideas, while easily drawing comparisons with Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein” with Jobe at one point even saying

“I’m sorry you hate what you created”

 

The other key reference point here being Daniel Keyes “Flowers for Algernon” which it probably shares the closest links to, while at the same time the theories explored here are done simply and interestingly enough so not to baffle new comers, while also making good use of the relatively new (at the time of the films release) Virtual Reality technology, which it’s safe to say hasn’t aged well in the years since it’s released, which is always the risk with any use of CGI, but here it pretty evident as what was once considered mind blowing looks painfully dated as featureless characters float in space against acid trip background with only Virtual Jobe getting any kind of characteristics. Still if your willing to take these effects with an open mind there is alot of fun to be had with the assorted uses which are not only limited to the virtual world, but soon begin leaking into the real world as the lines between the two continue to grow all the more blurred for Jobe, as he’s able to reduce men to molecules and even more randomly project himself as a giant floating head. Still interestingly enough part of the studio responsible for these effects would later become “Rockstar North” a studio best know for the “Grand Theft Auto Series”.

The two lead characters are both fascinating characters, with the pacifist Dr. Angelo constantly having to betray these beliefs to further his own research while, clearly caring about Jobe’s progress even though at times he lets his passion for progress overwhelm his compassion frequently pushing Jobe into traumatizing situations in favour of his progressing his researching while Fahey is completely convincing as the slow witted Jobe, with his childlike curiosity and friendship with the young boy Peter (O’Brien) who is essentially on the same mental level as Jobe if not higher, making their friendship seem completely natural, while Fahey naturally portrays the continually increasing intelligence of Jobe, to the point were he is able to change him from the lovable doofus to a terrifying megalomaniac as his power spirals out of control.

Despite being a cautionary tale, Jobe’s actions are frequently seen as more than an insane quest for power, especially as he seen being so frequently abused by the local bully Jake who frequently taunts him, while being even more regularly flogged for forgetting to do his chores by the sadistic priest whose shed he lives in, with both of these characters soon being targets for his revenge, while also unleashing a telepathically controlled lawnmower on Peter’s alcoholic father in one of the more laughable sequences of the film, while the majority of the other deaths at Jobe’s hands usually being the result of him being antagonised and unsurprisingly these scenes form the weaker parts of the film with the more interesting parts certainly being the Jobe’s ever increasing intelligence and Dr. Angelo intelligence enhancing experiments than Jobe’s ongoing quest for revenge and god like power.
Perhaps a better use of virtual reality would have been to film an established cyber punk classic like William Gibsons “Neuromancer”, but it did still pave the way for CGI in modern cinema by giving an example of what the effects could be used to create, while also leading the way to some abysmal attempts to follow up it’s success like “Arcade” and “Virtuosity” aswell as the ultimately superior yet more old school effects driven “eXistenZ.

“The Lawnmower Man” despite now being largely forgotten outside of sci-fi fans, grizzled VR boffins who felt that the film gave an unrealistic expectations of Virtual Reality, aswell as a brief legal case with Horror legend Stephen King, for the connection to his own short story about a man who eats what he mows (yes really) and to which this film has zero connection outside of a throw away line about part of one of Jobe’s victims being found in a birdbath and the less said about the sequel the better really, especially as the studio doubted that anyone would actually buy it so much, that they now give it away for free with this film. Still it is a film still worth giving a look even as a fun companion piece to the superior “Tron”.