Death Note Review

Having worked in retail for more years than I care to imagine, the chance to kill anyone whose name I know and face I can picture seems like a tempting idea. Although unlike the main character presented here, I would be less avenging angel and more old testament God.

I would differ in other, more subtle, ways as well. For example I would use an ancient mystical ability called ‘acting’ to convey my emotions, thoughts and feelings as opposed alternating between looking at all times like i’m about to burst into tears or screaming.

Another difference would be me asking why one of the major characters is never in shot. A case could be made that it’s to do with keeping an air of mystery and menace and that any character voiced by Willem Dafoe and has two glowing red eyes is inherently scary enough. But, then when you do get a clear look at Ryuk you realize that it could be because he looks about as realistic as a villain of the week in an early episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

As is, they both appear to have a similar budget. Although episodes of Buffy had much, much better, writing, plot, characters and played with cliches instead of embracing them.

Hell, even the original Buffy film didn’t feel as rushed or full of hackneyed characters.

But I hung in there, thinking that there might be some interesting ideas coming up, justice versus vengeance, do you have the right to play God and what happens if you make a mistake?

Instead, Sherlock Holmes tuns up, determined to track down the main character and I knew that whatever charms, or ideas or clever moments this film had were gone. Instead it was just a race to the bottom in a bid to see if this was bad as Dragonball Evolution which it isn’t (by a whisker).

Because this does have some nice shots and atmosphere but since I’ve never read the manga or seen the anime I don’t know if these are original shots and atmosphere or just copies. And how this got an 18 rating is beyond me. It plays out like a 12a film except maybe two or three times someone covers themselves in tomato ketchup and everyone pretends that they’ve dies in some horrific manner.

And if you can’t tell exactly whats going to happen and when, then i’m going to assume that you haven’t seen a lot of films.

It has themes that it doesn’t develop and tries to cram in a hell of a lot of lore into a single film. It’s not menacing, or scary or thought provoking in any way shape or form. It might turn into a minor cult classic but it’s not bad enough to develop that much of a following.

Recast the main character, calm down and develop your ideas and characters a bit more and this might have been salvageable.

As is?

My Score- Skip It 

Ghost In The Shell Review

Ghost In The Shell is based on one of the most influential manga of all time (which I’ve never read) and one of the greatest anime films of all time (which I’ve never seen) and bearing that in mind, I have to ask- Do both of them resemble an uninspired remake of 1987 film classic Robocop?

I’m deadly serious- in a world where the government has either collapsed or become completely irrelevant, a person who was converted into a cyborg against their will fights systematic corruption inside their own corporation whilst under constant threat of being shut down or having their memories wipes whilst trying to work out where the machine ends and the human begins.

Hell there’s even a boss battle at the end against what might as well be ED-209.

But there’s none of the satire that made Robocop a classic, none of the epic violence that made this film stand out hell, there’s hardly any violence at all. The films 110 million dollar budget condemned it to a 12a rating which has limited what I imagine could have been several very exciting action scenes.

And as for the philosophical underpinnings about morality, memories defining us, what does it mean to be human and was the whitewashing controversy overblown? All the dialogue is so on the nose that I was quite surprised to find out that Christopher Nolan hadn’t ‘borrowed’ the script. Instead it turns out that Spielberg had the rights since 2008 and has resisted the urge to drown it in his trademark sugar.

The film is literally dark though- I think someone forgot to hire a lighting guy or decided to spend the lighting money on instead hiring the sides of more London busses.

They certainly spent money hiring a legendary director though- getting the one, the only… Rupert Sanders! Who has directed such timeless classics as Snow White and the Huntsman and… erm… literally nothing else. Good move there Dreamworks.

And naturally, for a film set in Japan, based off of Japanese source material  but with seemingly no Japanese involvement in either the writing, producing or cinematography, the whole thing seems to have been filmed in New Zealand. Which, did mean that the geishas featured in many of the films trailers wore physical full-head masks, created by Weta Workshop, modeled after Japanese actress Rila Fukushima. Even the opening or ‘exploding’ of the geishas’ heads was handled mechanically rather than by using CGI. Which would normally get a gold star from me but since they feature for about 10 seconds and everything else is bad CGI, I was just left wondering why they bothered putting so much effort into something that barely mattered.

There are some good things, the film has some gorgeous shots but since the film is based off of a manga i’m just going to assume that they were direct lifts rather from the source material rather than from originals from the Directors mind so no points from me there.

The characters are all stock and underdeveloped, with Scarlett putting in an amazing performance despite the inevitable whitewashing controversy that has followed this film around.But, in the words of   Mamoru Oshii (director of the original films) “The Major is a cyborg and her physical form is an entirely assumed one. The name ‘Motoko Kusanagi’ and her current body are not her original name and body, so there is no basis for saying that an Asian actress must portray her. Even if her original body (presuming such a thing existed) were a Japanese one, that would still apply … I can only sense a political motive from the people opposing it, and I believe artistic expression must be free from politics.”

Also, A female Japanese American writer, Yoshida, has written extensively about the transmutability of Major Kusanagi’s identity, and about the “racial mystery zone” that so much anime, including Ghost in the Shell, occupies. “Japanese audiences, unlike American audiences, don’t understand Motoko to be a Japanese character,” Yoshida writes. “Of course, it’s a different issue for Japanese Americans, who grew up forced to think about identity in a much more tactile way”.

According to Yoshida, “Japan is a nation of people who are almost 100% ethnically Japanese. Accordingly, the average Japanese citizen’s outlook on diversity is much less influenced by pluralism than the outlooks of many Asian Americans, who live in a country where popular culture rarely represents them well, if at all. Hence, many Japanese Americans may find Johansson’s casting in a Ghost in the Shell movie distressing, while native Japanese observers make nothing of it”

Because when asked Japanese  fans were surprised that the casting had caused controversy, as they had assumed that a Hollywood production would choose a white actress. They felt the appearance of the protagonist was immaterial due to the franchise’s themes of self-identity and the blurring of artificial and natural bodies.

Ghost In The Shell is a dull predictable 106 minute long slog with a few good performances and visual shots failing to save it from stagnation and being forgotten immediately. I have no idea why it was made or who it was made for and neither does anyone else from the state of the box office receipts.

My Score- Skip It