Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Elevator Pitch: In a world were people are able to have cybernetic alterations or additions made to their bodies, a young woman who has been recovered from a terrorist attack which killed her parents is given a whole new body. She joins an anti-terror group and uses her superhuman capabilities to deal with the bad guys, who seem to be controlling robots and people remotely. However, her investigations begin to tell her that her memories are untrue and that actually she was taken to fulfil the requirements of her makers, the Hanka Corporation, whose chief executive begins to see her as a threat.

Content: Major, the cyborg, frequently strips off to become invisible, but it is not really nudity; there is a bit of drinking, and quite a bit of shooting mostly with rather unusual automatic weapons.  Major is quite often being repaired after explosions, and we see other people’s cybernetic additions, just a bit unsettling. The environment, apparently bits of Hong Kong, is very like that in the first Blade Runner. The CEO of the Hanka Corp is threatening and holds many conferences in semi-darkness. Actually we never really have any doubt that Section 9 will win in the end.

A View: Obviously I thought this film was fine. I have seen it in ordinary 2D, in IMAX and recently on my flat screen TV. It received mixed reviews from the critics, and its publicity was prejudiced by protests that the part of Major should have been played by an Asian woman rather than by Scarlett Johanssen. Since I started writing this blog I have developed more of an interest in the background to movies, and in this case if you look at the cover of the manga comic you would think that the part of Major should be played by a seventeen year old of indeterminate origin with an indefeasibly sexy physique. So come on you guys, get a life. It is still worth the price of a download.

Additional Info: Once more the film makers have turned to Lotus for their futuristic looking cars, in this case a Lotus Esprit and a Lotus Excel.