Written by Linda
March 01, 2009
Moviepie's Linda tussles with guest reviewer Stephanie about head-scratching anime.
STEPHANIE: A visually stunning masterpiece of Japanese animation, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence held its audience in rapture. I was lucky enough to see this one in the theatre and, based on attendance that evening, the audience for this film is 20- to 30-something, mostly male computer geeks.
Innocence delivers what a lot of anime lacks: a cohesive plot line that is easy to follow (although the plot momentum does come perilously close to grinding to a halt during the obligatory philosophical monologues). I have a love/hate relationship with the humanities quotes, but they redeem the explicitly violent scenes, providing an outlet for the characters to express their inner struggle with killing. Like experiencing a mini humanities course, the audience can study the philosopy upon further viewings of the film—basically giving the plot an extra depth.
But some of the most touching parts of the film happen to have no dialogue (or monologue) at all. The amazing feats of background animation and the interaction of the cyborg Batou with his dog are more effective meditations on the human condition than the philosophical quotes. But I digress.
If you want to sample some anime made for adult audiences (as opposed to some of the great work produced by Studio Ghibli) Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence are as good as it gets. I give this one 6 slices. I wish I could give it seven but I can only recommend it to a limited audience—I realize anime is not for everyone!
LINDA: Do I sound like an anime wimp when I sheepishly admit that Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence made me feel sleepy? Yes, seeing it in the context of many films during a short period of time (I saw it at the Seattle International Film Festival) probably did lower my tolerance and attention span a little, but still, I'm not sure I'd be in line to give it a second try.
Like Stephanie says, yes, the film looks fantastic. Three-dimensional realistic animation has jumped leaps and bounds lately, and the opening shot made me say, "Cooooooool...." But as soon as the characters are introduced, their blocky flat animation is super-imposed with the impressive computer animation. What the? Maybe this is a new technique, but it made me think, "Well, choose one or the other style, already." You could see the animators lingering on fantastically computer-animated scenes—like one of a street fair with towering elaborate traditional floats—for a little bit too long because they knew it looked great (leaving the characters and audience looking at their watches a bit).
On the surface, Innocence is impressive. But deep down, really it is just another odd-couple cop movie that happens to be animated [I say, ducking flying tomatoes]. There's the badass cyborg cop with a soft side (the aforementioned dog, who shares some of the best quiet scenes of the movie), and his partner, a skinny human guy with a mullet and a family at home (in that order). They blow rooms full of humanoid cyborgs into bloody bits, and do their own tough-fisted investigation. My favorite scene involved a chain-smoking mortician, who explained more in her plain-English, "This is what is going on" speech, than the rest of the movie put together. After that, the plot got a bit head-scratching for my tired brain.
By the time the philosophy got extra-heavy, and the investigation had brought them to the factory that had created the robots that had begun malfunctioning and killing their owners, I had kinda lost interest. I couldn't help but think, "Of course the robots are luscious-nubile-young-woman shaped. Of course they are basically 'naked' female robots because they are still in the factory. Of course they have big anime innocent-schoolgirl eyes..."
Though I found the gist of Innocence to be very interesting (robots getting human souls), the presentation turned out to a bit too dense for me to really appreciate it. Go on, call me a wimp... I can take it.
