Based on the manga by Masamune Shirow, Ghost In The Shell is about Motoko Kusanagi, a female cyborg soldier and leader of Section 9, that's trying to catch hacker simply named The Puppet Master. The Puppet Master can control anything like implanting false memories into another cyborg or even hack into any military system device at will and therefore, making him a real threat to the team and the whole city. So the race is on to catch this hacker but Kusanagi discovers that there's something much more to this hacker than just... Well being a hacker.
Without spoiling the whole story (cause If I do, I will get my head chopped off by GITS fans), it talks about the idea of robots having a conscious mind and with a conscious mind on the robots, it makes them more human than us, which is a damn good possibility since this is set in a future where technology is more advanced and powerful enough to create cyborgs as replacement if the human race will ever be extinct. I also liked The Puppet Master in this movie, which he is a cyborg hacker on the outside but on the inside, he doesn't want to destroy the world, he just wants to be something else than just a walking machine. With that said, my main problem with the film is that the characters are not that much interesting or well-developed. Yes, Kusanagi is a bad-ass cyborg soldier that can kick ass but on the whole, she's not that much interesting as a character in this film and I really wish that the writer could have given her like a struggle of trying to find the meaning of being human in a soulless body but here, she's just a soldier that can kick-ass, that's it.
The side characters are not much of help either. They feel like walking stereotypes that are just waiting for something big to happen and they're not very fleshed out either. Which is a big shame since I do like this one character named Batou, the cyborg with the augmented eyes, was really cool and the only character that I cared in the whole damn film. As for the action in Ghost In The Shell, it is really good but again, the problem is that there's barely a lot of action in the film. It starts with a very cool opening when Kusanagi takes down a bunch of cyborgs while invisible and it leads to the "more talking, less action" route, which I have nothing against it but they could have made more action scenes in order to have a balance of action and story. GITS has a lot of good story ideas going for it and it works but the characters are just boring as hell and there isn't enough entertainment value to enjoy it even more.
But I will admit that GITS is gorgeous to look at. It was done by Production I.G. and the animation is a real stunner for an anime film to be released in 1995. The detail of the characters to the incredibly good looking visuals and to the futuristic design, GITS is a masterpiece in the animation department and the scenes where they show-off the animation is simply beautiful to look at while the chanting plays in the background. Speaking of chanting, the music is really mesmerizing and it contains one of the best opening chant songs in film history, delivering a chilling sense of dread and mystery into the world of GITS. The dub is pretty good with Mary Elizabeth McGlynn delivering an awesome performance as Kusanagi, Richard Epoar doing a decent job as Batou and for whoever voiced The Puppet Master, he was excellent in the role.
While I don't think Ghost In The Shell is a perfect film, it still delivers a very good story with a great idea to back-it up. It's just that I wished they could have developed the characters a bit better and to have the film a balance between more action and more story. If you missed out on the phenomenon that is GITS, go check it out. It's a fascinating film that will still be remembered for all eternity.
