The Major (Scarlett Johansson) is a cyborg police officer whose life was saved by high-profile scientists who put her brain into a robotic body, though the cost of this procedure is that her memories of her pre-cyborg days are fuzzy at best. A new enemy that surfaces, however, challenges all of her preconceptions of reality, with there actually being far more sinister reasons for her being turned into a cyborg than initially anticipated. The Major then goes on the run to figure out her past and take down the people responsible for hurting her and others who have been turned into robots against their will.
What we've got here essentially is a Jason Bourne-like action tale of "Getting revenge and finding answers", but neither the revenge nor answers in the plot within are all that interesting. The Major actually doesn't get to do much in the way of revenge apart from fighting off a tank in the climax, its other thinly developed supporting characters who get to handle all the actual revenge stuff (including handling the main bad guy) in the finale. Similarly, the answers about her past aren't all that interesting, since hse just sort of stumbles into answers including two pivotal figures from her past that just sort of show up and figuring out who's behind all of this mayhem is similarly dramatically inert since both the adversaries and allies in this story are pretty obvious from the first scene of the story even if the movie seems oddly unaware of how conspicuous these particular story details are.
So the two main mechanics driving the plot (revenge and illuminating The Major's past) are basically no-go's in terms of being interesting, meaning the movie turns into a real slog real fast. The few action sequences are similarly middling, never really delivering any interesting fight choreography and even managing to frequently refuse to take advantage of the Major's cyborg powers to keep the fight scenes interesting and unique. Plus, two of these action sequences are basically just extended homages to two action bits from the original 1995 animated movie, so those segments of the movie come off as predictable fan service as well as lackluster action moments. With a direly dull plot and no interesting action to prop it up, this new Ghost In The Shell movie quickly becomes a tedious affair to watch.
Even the weighty themes of the original movie have been jettisoned, with lip service being paid to the ideas of how technology and identity being so intertwined can affect a persons personality, but they mostly deal with that intriguing topic by way of clunky dialogue (in the first scene, an African king just flat out talk about that entire theme in a notable bit of hilariously inept writing). After just referencing those ideas in explicit dialogue early on, it just abandons exploring any interesting ideas in favor of the anemic "Who am I?" storyline The Major goes on. The movie didn't have to replicate the themes of the original movie to be good in my eyes (actually, repeating too much of its source material is one of my primary complaints of this new Ghost In The Shell), I just wish it did any sort of interesting exploration of the themes it only briefly brings up in a sloppy manner.
Scarlett Johansson seems to be just as bored as I was in her performance here, which is strange to see since some of her best performances have come from grappling with the humanity in non-human entities in the likes of Her and Under The Skin. But here, Johansson gets no chance to bring a sense of personality to The Major, with her stagnant demeanor in the role comes off as less "robotic" and more outright apathy. Meanwhile, the way the plot tries to bend over backward to explain why The Major is white in this version of the story only incorporates even more uncomfortable racial aspects into the story (without going into spoilers, the premise dovetails into plot points in the third act that have heavy "White Savior" shades to them which is just icky) that show how much of an awful idea it was to whitewash this role for this movie.
The various sets of Ghost In The Shell are probably the only area where the movie excels, lots of bright colors that make the city The Major and her cohorts patrol certainly feel alive and vibrant. Oh, and there is a basset hound on-screen for a tiny bit of screentime, he's a precious pupper that I seriously wish got more to do. After all, doggies make every movie better and Ghost In the Shell could use all the help it can get in terms of improving its low quality. Neither fun enough to serve as a remotely decent action movie nor nowhere near smart enough to be a thought-provoking feature film, Ghost In The Shell is a forgettable affair with pretty sets and little else of note to its name.
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