Ghost in the Shell has always been a series that I love and enjoy watching the various movies and tv shows based in the universe. And with the announcement of a Netflix Ghost in the Shell, I figured I should finally get around to finishing up the rest of the existing tv shows and movies at the least. But Arise: Border 1 Ghost Pain just wasn’t a Ghost in the Shell movie remotely close to what I would want and didn’t enjoy in the least. Instead I got more explosions and fight scenes, alongside fast paced story telling that ends up being severely lacking in many aspects.
The story seems like it didn’t do anything new or expand on the characters at all. Somebody ends up dead so Major must investigate the murder and solve the crime. Along the way she ends up questioning who she is and what is real. Except the pacing of this investigation is so quick it doesn’t have enough time to breath and ask any questions. So, it isn’t so much as an investigation, as going from one set-piece to another in order to get some scene or fight in. I never got a feeling that Major was using her “wizard” level hacking skills to uncover some massive piece of the puzzle and put the murder together or working with other people around her to lead her to the solution. Instead it feels like she just happens to put things together without warning or explanation until the final scene when it all gets explained. None of which ends up feeling deserved or hard fought for, it is just feels handed to us.
The characters beside Major are essentially non-existent. Major is the main focus of the movie completely, and a main plot point revolves around her and her cybernetics. And once again the question of what is real and what isn’t shows up again in this movie, but it is never explored or questioned. And Major never really has a questioning her humanity moment like she has had in the past, no brilliant diving scene in this movie. Her character design also got a major change which I feel like is the biggest issue with her character really. I can understand changing a character’s backstory and putting the movie in an alternate universe to give everyone more space to work with. So, while I’m annoyed at the changes they made to her backstory, I can accept it and ignore them. What I don’t like are the changes they made that end up having her character look like a 16-year-old. In 3 years, she ends up being this rather badass looking character with an amazing design. But in these movies, she has none of those features that she has in Stand Alone Complex, and instead she looks like a young teenager who looks out of place. It would work better if they had set it farther back in time, but as it is it looks disjointed if your used to the way she looks in essentially everything else.
Minor touch on the way the movie looks, well I guess it looks bland and kinda boring. It didn’t have any moments of camera pan that make me stop and say…Wow. Instead it looks kinda like a generic futuristic city without anything special. Just another disappointing downgrade from everything in the previous shows and movies.
To finish this up, I would say that unless you are a fan of Ghost in the Shell like I am. And just want to finish up the video content to say you’ve seen it all, I would go watch a better movie. Cause this doesn’t have anything impressive or interesting when compared to the previous entries.
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