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The Ghost In The Shell 2 – Innocence

Having not seen the first Ghost In The Shell, I can’t compare this sequel to the original. With that said, this film as absolutely stunning visually. The combination of 2-D animation with 3-D CGI is absolutely amazing and it sucked me in right from the start. The story is of Bato, a cyborg detective for the anti-terrorist unit Public Security Section 9 and his partner's (Togusa) investigation of a female robot (created only for sexual pleasure) that slaughtered her owner.

The animation is incredible, but the story left a bit to be desired for me. The characters basically wax philosophical for most of the movie giving it a feel of falling in love with its own intelligence. The dialogue was like a game of quote poker – “I’ll match your psalm and raise you one Milton and two Freuds.” This is not a knock on the film. I understood what it was going for with its search for a deeper meaning and symbolism. I’m just saying it could have been more balanced. Though staunch supporters of the film will say “any movie that engages your brain need not make any apologies.” This may be true, but I find that gratuitous intelligence can be just as bad or not entertaining as gratuitous sex or violence. This is far from a stupid movie, but those who will blindly support it just because it is a “smart” film shouldn’t knock those who were expecting an action-packed film with deeper meaning as opposed to a philosophical film with some action.

Now onto the DVD experience itself. Not having it dubbed in English is a big faux pas, but an even bigger mistake is having only one subtitle option. It was a hearing-impaired subtitle track where things like background noise, idle chatter, and rain popped up when you could obviously hear it. Was that enough for me to totally blast the film? No, but it did take the level of enjoyment down several notches, which makes the experience less fun. I understand the fan's passion and can relate to having nuances make a big difference, but the visuals are so lush and beautiful I simply can’t totally pan the film for this blunder.

Overall, this is a great film with the real negative being the DVD presentation.

Written by: Bobby Blades

Reviewers Rating: 8
Reader's Rating: 10.00
Reader's Votes: 1

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