Ghost in the Shell is a 2017 action, crime-drama directed by Rupert Sanders. This film stars Scarlett Johansson, Pilou Asbaek, and Takeshi Kitano to name a few. This movie takes place in a futuristic world where Major (Johansson) has her human brain preserved inside of a cyborg/robot machine. She then has to figure out who's hacking into these cyborgs brains all while figuring out who she really was in her past. Now I have never seen any other Ghost in the Shell film. I went into this movie with no expectations. I was aware that some critics disliked it, and some critics liked it, but I had no prior experience with this film and really went in knowing pretty much nothing. Ghost in the Shell is a visually breathtaking film, this is a fantastically crafted movie with an amazing technological element. There are some shots in here that were groundbreaking for our time. This is definitely one of the better examples of how technology has really influenced modern film and the industry. However, despite it's stellar visuals I found this movie to be pretty bland. This isn't a boring movie, but that said, it's also not terribly interesting either. The trek to find the hacker company is very confusing and that's often what prevented me from getting into this film: there's very little exposition. While there is a tiny bit in the beginning, this movie felt like it was relying on the audience to know this story already. That in itself is a giant flaw because a film should never rely on a previous movie to tell a good story. You can have sequels and threequels, but this film completely hangs off of other more successful movies. Again, this movie won't put you to sleep, but it's bland and that was ultimately very surprising considering how amazing looking this movie truly is. It's sort of like a bar or two below I-Robot with Will Smith. It's such a cool concept and look, but aside from the technological aspects there's not much to behold. There's not just that though--this movie has some positives. All the performances in this movie were really good and I loved how focused Scarlett Johansson was. She brought a lot of seriousness to the role and I really appreciated that aspect. Also, the ending to this movie (in which Major starts to figure out who she really is) was very intriguing. That aspect of the film should have been the driving force. This movie is meant to be about self-discovery (as I've heard of the previous films) and once it hit that point in the plot, I was hooked. However, it ends before it has the time to get interesting. Overall, Ghost in the Shell is bland, but it has very focused performances, mind-boggling special effects and camerawork, and it does have an engaging ending. Yet, that credit button was hit just a little too soon. I think this movie needs a little re-organizing, it's not a failure, but it didn't quite make as much of a mark as I thought it should have. Two stars= C
