View Larger Image |
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 |
 "Beautiful Images/ Zero Story/Quotational Hell"First off, let me just say, I live in Japan and secondly I like animation. Having said that I was horribly disappointed with this dvd.Feeling like I had missed something, I asked a number of Anime loving Japanese "do you understand this movie"? Guess what answer they gave me! Its not surprising this film didnt do so well in Japan. Yes, Mamoru Oshi has in the past created some master works. Yes, we know he loves his dog (his dog in the movie) and that he desperately wants to let everyone know that by quoting Milton, the Bible and others in your movie, you can appear to be sophisticated in Western Culture. In the end, when no one from ANY culture can understand your story, its time to rewrite the whole thing.  "Sci fi poetry"Combining elements reminescent of Bladerunner,Matrix,Terminator and I Robot this is a surrealist tour de force and is as visually stunning as it is thought provoking. Imagine Mulder OD'd on smart drugs and Allan Watts and you have some of the obscurest and most intellectually satisfying lines I've ever heard in one film. The questions this movie raises places it light years beyound most mainstream movies of its genre. It is a heavily atomospheric movie, with a great eye for incidental detail and subtle visual effects. This movie is not a kids film, it raises the bar way above most anything in its class. While the characters do stand around and espouse quite a bit, there's enough going on in the film to keep it interesting. It's close to being a masterpiece of animation; I'd give it an 8-9 out of 10. "ghost in the shell game"Beautiful animation, absolutely incomprehensible story. I felt like I was watching the Matrix after someone had arbitrarily scrambled all the scenes. It has to do with dolls that kill (for reasons I couldn't figure out), which for some reason had a need for human souls, and are finally tracked down by a detective based on clues that don't seem to be explained in any way.  "Great movie -- lousy english transfer"It seems Dreamworks put their most inept intern in charge of transferring this DVD to English. Not only do they plaster the subtitles on the film itself (not necessary for a widescreen DVD release), they did a "listening disabled" subtitle. Thus, during amazing video sequences, we have subtitles like [helicopter noises] and [singing in Japanese] thrown at us. The movie itself is gorgeous, with a plot that is both utterly convoluted and simplistic at the same time. There actually isn't that much violence in it. Mainly the characters recite depressing and cryptic poetry at each other, although the "What Is Reality/Humanity?" crisis is less apparent than GHOST IN THE SHELL. Lots of screen time is taken up by slow pans over the extraordinary CAD rendering of the sets, which is fine. But the movie is not as slow as it could have been. The music and audio is incredible; almost its own character. I appreciate what Mamoru Oshii is doing in these films; the kinds of cyberpunk postmodern issues he brings out in his movies are timeless in their own way. He's really going beyond anime with his films, and I hope they inspire people to create such films, but with more creative and interesting storylines. "Arrghh!!! Dreamworks you fools!!!!"I totally agree with the other reviewers who posted about the poor English transfer by Dreamworks of what should have been a SUPERB DVD. At least I got to see the movie which never came to my little podunk town. But why on earth could Dreamworks not come up with an English dub? Or at least NOT subtitle the sound effects? How annoying is THAT??!!!!! I'm glad I only rented this. If they would come up with a decent DVD I would be glad to buy it. But I'm not wasting my money on this rubbish. Are you listening, Dreamworks? If you insist on licensing anime then at least have the decency to make a proper DVD :( |
