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Flashy visuals abound in "Ghost in the Shell," a live-action adaptation of the classic Japanese manga title that expands the story's global reach but contracts its big ideas.
It's the future where humans get cybernetic body parts and upload data from computer networks. (It's also the future where giant holographic advertising covers every building, à la "Blade Runner.") In this future, the conglomerate Hanka Robotics works on the next big step: putting a human brain into a fully integrated robot body.
Thus is created Major (Scarlett Johansson), who becomes a butt-kicking agent for Section 9 of an unnamed nation's department of defense. She and her tough-guy partner, Batou ("Game of Thrones'" Pilou Asbaek), are part of a multinational anti-terrorist team led by the cagey Chief Aramaki (played by the Japanese gangster-movie legend "Beat" Takeshi Kitano).
Major and her crew investigate the murders of several Hanka scientists, apparently orchestrated by the mysterious Kuze (Michael Carmen Pitt). She soon learns from Dr. Ouelet (Juliette Binoche), the scientist who programmed her, that Hanka has been withholding the truth about their experiments — including the origins of Major's brain, the human soul (or "ghost") inside her robot "shell."
Director Rupert Sanders ("Snow White and the Huntsman") tries to emulate the cyberpunk feel of Shirow Masamune's books and Mamoru Oshii's landmark 1995 anime film, and he succeeds in purely visual terms. The story — with a script tag-teamed by three writers — doesn't begin to tackle the thorny issues of identity, and the increasingly blurry line between organic and mechanical, with which those versions grappled.
Sanders has assembled a strong international cast. Besides the American Johansson in the lead, there's a Dane (Asbaek), a Frenchwoman (Binoche), a Japanese (Takeshi) and other actors from around the world. The movie has been criticized for "whitewashing," particularly in casting Johansson in a beloved Japanese tale — but the question is more ambiguous in that global-minded context.
Johansson gives a fierce performance, in keeping with Sanders' reimagining of the story — and, in her iridescent bodysuit, is one of the movie's most effective special effects. Whether she had Sanders honor the intent of "Ghost in the Shell" or betray it is for each viewer to decide.
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'Ghost in the Shell'
A robot with a human brain battles crime, and seeks the truth about her origins, in this visually stylish science-fiction thriller.
Where • Theaters everywhere.
When • Opens Friday, March 31.
Rating • PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence, suggestive content and some disturbing images.
Running time • 107 minutes.