The story is set in a futuristic world where cyber-hacking exists, and one can control a person's actions through hacking their brains with an element known as "ghost". The film moves on a very slow pace almost throughout, alas a key factor in one deciding to drop it midway.
The script is the weak point of the movie. It it too short and it fails to explain just what is going on in this movie. It starts well, it has great pacing and it builds nicely, but then it grinds to a halt about midpoint and it never gets going again.
The main premise of the movie remains unexplained: just what is a ghost and how does somebody hack into it? Are all humans cyborgs? Do they all have artificial bodies? Or just a few?
On a deeper level, the script tries to touch on a more interesting problem: what exactly do humans feel, if you take away their body? Are they still humans? Or something else? Are they still capable of love and devotion?
The music is great. The theme is haunting, it is surprising and quite stirring. It also complements very well the images on the screen.
Ghost in the Shell has some of the best animation I've ever seen, and the character designs really fit the story. There are moments when the camera simply stops in place, lost in a long contemplation, as people go in and out of the picture. There is also the use of water as a mirror, reflecting the reality above, around and beyond it.
The action scenes are well done, and during dialogues the camera has a way of focusing on the person who listens, not on the one who is talking, which may be confusing, at first, but then it becomes quite interesting. The camera moves a lot, and the director makes a point out of filling in the entire space around the characters.
20 years on after releasing, the art is still top notch and packs a punch. It might a bit dated by today's standards, maybe, but still very well done. The characters are interesting, and the surroundings are full of small, fine touches, of which some may seem like a little far-fetched, at first, but they all add to the atmosphere of the movie. The action sequences are also well done, but there's only a couple of them and they're short-lived. Then we're stuck with another long sequence of events which add-up to little.
In the end, I come back asking myself just what is Ghost in the Shell? The answer to that is that it's a good action anime, that develops a midlife crisis.
