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Ghost in the Shell 2 - Innocence Actors: Akio Ôtsuka, Atsuko Tanaka, Tamio Ôki Director: Mamoru Oshii Number of Items: 1 Format: Animated, Color, Widescreen, Dolby Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) Running Time: 100 minutes Studio: Umvd/Dreamworks Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2004-12-28 Buy from Amazon |
 "Stupid Subtitles..............."This is a marvelous film that is ruined by what appears to be a stuck Closed Caption feature. I was going to return it until I read the other reviews. I guess I have to assume that Dreamworks intended you to read "[helicopter blades rotating]" or "[light sounding footsteps]" including the brackets/brackets closed. Is this defective? Buyer beware!!!!!!!!!  ""Who can gaze into a mirror without becoming evil?""This may be hard to believe, but I can think of no anime/CGI film I've seen since Ghost in the Shell that has anything like the impact of Innoncence. This is certainly one of the best of its kind. Unfortunately, lacking the sexiness and high energy of Ghost, it has gone largely unnoticed. I can only point out that the deep layering of not only the visual work, but music, dialog, and plot, demonstrate an almost infinite level of detail. In many ways, this reflexion is what Mamoru Oshii was striving for - a film that challenges not only the viewer's definition of reality, but stretches the meaning of human beyond all comfortable boundaries. Three years have passed since Major Motoko Kusanagi entered the Net, leaving Batou, her partner, alone in a world where few have the mental cognates to understand what life as a 'ghost' really means. A series of horrific killings spread across Tokyo. Violent, arbitrary slayings by a new series of 'dolls' - robot toys for men. Aramaki assigns Batou and Togusa to the investigation as partners. Togusa is uncomfortable in this role because he is a full human. 'I have a daughter back at home,' he says. The story ranges from bloody crime scenes to a Yakuza showdown as Batou allows himself to be hunted in an effort to find the threads of the crime. Lurking in the shadows are the manufacturers of the dolls, but Togusa and Batou must visit an eerie city that resembles a Hong Kong straight out of Bladerunner and a trip to a hacker's mansion where death, rebirth, and illusion are the stock in trade. In the end it is not clear if they are searching for proof or for a deeper truth. The artwork and animation are so brilliant, and one can miss the a level of dialog where quotations from the Bible, Milton, and Japanese philosophers are commonplace, and Batou's interrogations are essays in the real subjects of the film. The problem with dolls is not that, unlike the life they reflect, they can reach perfection. The only thing that might spoil their mechanical grace and attention is the injection of a human consciousness. Dolls, dogs, and children, director Oshii suggests, are our toys - made to imitate what we like best in ourselves. This is a dark film. It frightens because the acts that open the layers if the case are unbound by human considerations. Even when the motivations are good. When Kusanagi's consciousness makes its appearances she can only offer Batou hope if he is willing to leave his human framework behind. Only then can she be with him. Available only as subtitled Japanese, with a brilliant 'making of' and a full length commentary by Oshii as extras, this is still a DVD you will want to own. Wherever you look there is more to seen, a brilliant script with interlocking references, and music that is a further refinement of what was done in Ghost in the Shell. The more you watch it, the better it gets.  "Guarantee: *NOT* about the subtitling issue"The movie was OK as far as it went. Definitely a great deal of effort went into it, and probably works better on the big screen. I found the intermixing of the traditional and CG animation very distracting, unlike the original which was nearly all traditional animation (save some mechanics and computer display imagery done in CG.) A traditional animated person holding a CG animated gun - what's the point in that? You get a little lost following the plotline towards the end, and the whole what-does-it-mean-to-be-human message doesn't have the impact you'd hope for. AND an English dub would've been appreciated. *SPOILER ALERT!!* Also, don't you hate it when a film version of a comic takes a snippet of one of the original comic's stories, uses it in the film, but less effectively? The girl rescuing herself from the factory by sabotaging the dolls and hoping someone would investigate is straight from the comic, but doesn't drive home Masamune Shirow's point of personal responsibility (you shouldn't try to save your own neck at the expense of innocents.)  "English please"The very fact that the movie was only in Japanese language discouraged me from going any further than the first word in the movie. The movie also subtitles varies noises in the movie such as a helicopter approaching and background chatter of common civilians. I'll give this movie two stars just for the fact that I can't stand to watch movies that can only be viewed with subtitles and no English language, as well as the subtitling of various background noises. "Go Fish needs a swift kick!"Despite being a fan of Oshii's work (and GITS in general) I missed out on seeing this in the cinema. A couple months back I'd read about the oopsie-daisy close-captioned subtitle only issue but forgot about it when I bought the disk yesterday, only to be painfully reminded when I tried to watch INNOCENCE last night. Talk about a ruined experience! I seriously didn't even get five minutes into it before I had to shut it off. And while I'm grateful (shrug) for the DVD replacement offer, it still sucks that I have to wait almost a whole month to get the corrected disk in the mail. Oh, and regarding the subs-vs-dubs issue, I'm kind of a purist when it comes to keeping a film in its original context, especially when it comes to foriegn language films. Poorly done overly-dramatic dubs by US/Canadian "actors" who don't have the slightest grasp of the thematic elements of the story don't do the production justice. If you want to marvel at the animation, just watch it once with the subs on to catch the dialogue, then watch it again with the subs off and bask in the artistry. Very simple, very easy. Hopefully the correctly subtitled version of INNOCENCE will ease the pain of this should-have-been-easily-avoided snafu. |
