nutshell review: a movie so expensive to make that the original studio, production i.g., had to ask toshio suzuki (studio ghibli's head) to split it with them. all that production value is apparent in the incredibly-detailed animation on screen. for me, the hand-drawn parts are a marvel, but the cg-assisted imagery is already starting to look dated in parts, bringing down the overall effect. in story terms, this is a direct sequel to the original ghost in the shell film, but doesn't work in a chronology with any of the other gits series or films. despite the marketing images, this is really a film about batou, the partner of the main character in all other gits stories, motoko kusanagi. as such, it's bound to disappoint some people, and indeed, it's my least favorite of all the films. it's also got that trademark mamoru ishii imbalance of great action scenes broken by long stretches of obtuse philosophizing. viewer beware. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- for the real cinephiles: i tried to watch this in between the original film and the stand alone complex films, hoping a little bit of imagination on my part could make them all fit together. unfortunately, this doesn't fill in any gaps when motoko is suddenly together with her section 9 team of police in the sac series. it also doesn't really continue or elaborate on the shocking ending to the original film (if you haven't seen that classic, definitely check it out, i reviewed it here: https://letterboxd.com/nottheacademy/film/ghost-in-the-shell-20/) so this feels like a side-story in the gits universe more than anything else, and it doesn't really stand on its own. the character togusa is a large part of this series, but he wasn't in the original film and his backstory is all in the arise film series or sac. he's just suddenly here in a kind of nod to odd couple buddy cop films, but without really capitalizing on it. there's also a whole other section 9 team at play here, but none of them are really explained or given much development. it's not a film that develops character very well. this film also really falters in its vision of the future compared to the other gits stories. while the original film borrowed a lot from blade runner (which was itself borrowing from japanese films and anime), this one seems more akin to the look of blade runner 2049. there's actually a major building in this that i swear influenced wallace's hq in that film. but much of the film loses track of the plot in its effort to make parallels. director mamoru oshii gets so lost meditating on dolls that he's heavily influenced by past european architecture, and his characters all quote enlightenment thinkers like they're fresh in everyone's minds. it's as if there have been no new influential thinkers in this imaginary future, and no new tech that wasn't imagined already 20 years ago. the rest of the gits stories, most notably the arise films, do a much better job balancing the heady philosophy with characters actually doing stuff. they portray a more fully-realized future world with many different ways to plug in, to hack, to cyberattack, to copy and dupe someone's digital "ghost". this film is noticeably less "cyber" and less "punk", though it does still have some of original author masumune shirow's clever concepts. there are callbacks to the original movie with no explanation and running gags that seem out of place, so you'd really better watch this right after the original in order to get the best value from it. if you're the kind of viewer who loves to sink into an auteur's personal issues, then there's a lot to dig into here. however, if you are someone who looks for a story to come together and pay off, this may be less than fulfilling. it's a very indulgent film by oshii, full of long shots and quiet moments that i can't for the life of me think how they serve the story. he spends a lot of screen time on seemingly inconsequential day-to-day stuff, like how batou relaxes in a chair, how his basset hound moves, or on a robotic basset hound toy he has (with the same name on it as oshii's own basset hound). it's beautifully-animated, but what how does it serve the film?? i had to look up online after to see this is apparently meant to be a symbolic counterpoint to dolls/robots, who we create in our image but have less emotion than the animals we...create? the meditation on duality didn't connect with me. it's telling that oshii's most-critically-lauded film is angel's egg, which has no dialogue. free of his overt philosophizing, viewers are left to read into the unique visuals whatever symbolism they imagine. this film might work better that way too, with some compelling animated sequences, kenji kawai's iconic music, and shirow's used-future visuals. it's a film with a lot of style, but misses out on connecting emotionally. a real shame, as it has a simple plot throughline that should get a visceral reaction: (spoiler) . the yakuza are abducting children and putting them in illegal sex robots. this is thus the future version of a pedophile sex ring. sadly, this easily gets lost in the obtuse way the plot is presented in the film. oshii really needs to direct someone else's scripts.