GHOST IN THE SHELL 2.8*** (I’m taking off ½ a point for the awful misuse of Scarlett)

         Scarlett Johansson stars as the film's lead character, Major. Initially casting her for the part was controversial  due to the fact that Johansson is a white woman being cast as a character who is originally Japanese. But, due to a positive reception from Asian audiences, and the fact that Major is a human brain inside a robotic body (A Ghost in a Shell if you will), the casting choice is a valid one. Johansson proves a great choice for this role, performing in a half robotic, half human kind of way that one would expect the character to behave as.  

Ghost in the Shell takes place in a technically advanced mid-21st-century Japanese city called New Port City. Due to geopolitical events and war Japan is a major world power and the population in New Port City is very multicultural and has lots of ethnic mixing. In this future, the boundaries between humans and  robots are essentially nil. In this time cybernetic enhancements are available to anyone who can afford them. What it means to be human when more and more body functions are enhanced or replaced by cybernetic parts is the central theme of Ghost in the Shell. The “ghost” refers to a person's consciousness or soul, and the shell is the body that the ghost inhabits. Johansson’s character,  is the first successful full body prostheses with just her brain implanted in a cybernetic shell.   

Plot wise  Ghost in the Shell starts a year after Johansson's character has been 'born' as a cyborg. She is part of a government security team called Section 9 that is tasked with dealing with cyber-related crime. Someone is killing scientists and managers from Hanka Robotics, the corporation that made Major's cybernetic body and put her brain in it. Section 9 has to investigate these and this leads Major to question  who she was before they took her brain.

The movies strongest point is the visual special effects that portrays a futuristic city without a soul. One gets to see many quirky cyborgs, complicated machines, colorful screens, elegant vehicles and sophisticated weapons.. Everything seems artificial despite being technically and visually stunning. In this case, the shell looks beautiful but there doesn’t seem to have any ghost inside. The movie actually makes you feel hollow at times but I suppose this was intentional and that's why I won't criticize that in this particular case. The different characters soon realize that they are living in a fake paradise. The underlying message of the movie is that too much technology will make humanity regress instead of progress which is an important statement in the early twenty-first century.

My biggest complaint about the movie is how they physically portray Scarlett. She is such a beautiful woman, YET they put her in a uniform/body suit that looks like a beige mannequin with her body shown in sections !?!?!? The result is a Frankenstein feel and NO sexuality. It’s like they took a beauty and turned her into a beast. SHAME ON THEM !!!!!!

Rated PG-13 for some violence and content (but this is a soft PG-13)

Clark

     L I F E  3.0***

 ‘’Life’ tells the story of a crew of astronauts on an international space station circling the Earth. They discover a new life form from Mars brought back by an unmanned space explorer. As the crew begins to examine the new life form, it begins to grow and become intelligent. It then escapes from the lab and starts taking out the crew members.  As the alien form makes its way through the group, the space team desperately tries to kill the alien  and above all prevent it from getting to Earth. The film is a heart pounding sci-fi horror film much in the same vein of Ridley Scott's Alien. While many sci-fi films since Alien have tried to imitate it, “Life” succeeds by having an apparently indestructible alien in the claustrophobic environment of the space station. There are some times when you think the film will take a right, but instead it takes a hard, very surprising left. These twists keep you on your toes and never let you relax  which is a huge compliment for a sci-fi horror film.

Starring an all-star cast of Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds, and Rebecca Ferguson, the film's cast adds to the surprising nature of the story. The moments that end up being the biggest in the film come from the surprising lengths these characters will go in order to survive and keep the alien from getting to Earth. This makes for a very layered and very interesting take on something that could have easily been a CGI spectacle with no heart and very little brain. The decisions that these characters make are real decisions.  the weight of which echoes and reverberates throughout the entire film.  

This movie’s alien is a super intelligent, highly evolved form of bacteria.  Actual physics and biology was used to create the alien form. . It wasn't just some creature out of the mind of a screenwriter or CGI nerd.  Also, they used an actual space station, that is real and does exist. . This movie is about what could actually happen if we’re not super careful as we go about our exploration of space. This is something that we should actually be worried about. “Life” is  ground breaking in its concept and execution. It does not cop out by using theoretical science and fictional equipment. “Life” uses all actual equipment, actual science, and actual crew reactions, although, I would have sacrificed the first guy who became infected, immediately and booted the then immature  alien out of the space station at the first sign of an issue. But the curiosity of a huge scientific discovery blinded the crew to the truly deadly nature of the alien..

Rated R for language throughout, some sci-fi violence and terror.

Clark