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Film Review - Ghost in the Shell: Arise: Ghost Pain
7 years ago
The award for the title with the most sub titles goes too- ...the film that gets paid for every use of the word 'Ghost'.
GITS Arise Ghost Pain is a film that I assume is supposed to be an origin story for Ghost in the Shell, but it's a bad film that fails as both an origin story and as a mystery, and is best forgetten.
The films plot is incomprehencable. After a guy is exhumed to check his cyberbrain following corruption alligations, the grave is revealed to be booby trapped. What follows is an investigation into his death. I had no idea what was going on most of the film, and gave up trying to follow it becuase the investigation boils down to The Major going somewhere, finding some allegedly important clue or meeting a character that dumps exposition on her. None of makes much sense. It's not like Praoit or Columbo where you can solve the case along with the character because the clues make sense, and you can figure it out if you pay attention. It's not like Law and Order where you're following a trail of leads from one person to another. Instead, something happens, and the characters say it's important, then something else happens. And at the end, there's a long exposition dumb, with The Major trying to plug plot holes and getting vague answers.
In short, I don't like the film. In order to go into more detail I'm going to have to spoil it, and I'll also spoil another film and a game, so consider this your-
---SPOILER WARNING---
...
Now you're good and warned, I can explain how frustrating and dumb this film is.
Throughout the film, The Major keeps seeing a robot girl out the corner of her eye, reflected in TV screens, shower door, only to not be there when she turns around. It's cool and all ghost like. Turns out that the girl is really there, but her perceptions were altered so she couldn't see it, but the alteration didn't account for reflections. A cool twist. ...but that raises questions, like why did they use a little girl robot that could easily be seen by accident, noticed by neighbours, etc. Why not use a spy camera or something of that nature? The reason for doing it also don't make much sense, since the villains try to kill her multiple times. Again, you have an invisable exploding spy robot in her house.
This isn't the only way this is used. It is revealed that the breif case containing a CD and a gun was also not real. The case was empty, or only contained the CD, it's not clear. But the thing is, she's been using this pretend gun throughout the film. Did no one mention that she was pointing and shouting bang? And how did she block a sword with it?
See, the whole "X is crazy!" can work really well in the hands of a great writer. Fight Club answers it's own questions and makes the second viewing different because you can see all the ways the twist works, and explains why characters say and do the things they do. In the hands of a bad writer, you end up with something like Spec Ops: The Line, where it raises more questions than it answers. "Why does no one tell walker he's shouting at a broken radio?", "Why does no one say anything when Walker is agonizing over shooting a corpse?", and hand waving it as "Walker is crazy!" creates even more plot holes, and hand waving those away creates even more, until either the whole plot is either broken, or doesn't matter.
GITS: Arise: Ghost Pain is that. It's a badly done mystery, a badly done twist, and a badly done origin story. To steal a joke from a friend, you're time would be better spent taking a nap than watching this film.
GITS Arise Ghost Pain is a film that I assume is supposed to be an origin story for Ghost in the Shell, but it's a bad film that fails as both an origin story and as a mystery, and is best forgetten.
The films plot is incomprehencable. After a guy is exhumed to check his cyberbrain following corruption alligations, the grave is revealed to be booby trapped. What follows is an investigation into his death. I had no idea what was going on most of the film, and gave up trying to follow it becuase the investigation boils down to The Major going somewhere, finding some allegedly important clue or meeting a character that dumps exposition on her. None of makes much sense. It's not like Praoit or Columbo where you can solve the case along with the character because the clues make sense, and you can figure it out if you pay attention. It's not like Law and Order where you're following a trail of leads from one person to another. Instead, something happens, and the characters say it's important, then something else happens. And at the end, there's a long exposition dumb, with The Major trying to plug plot holes and getting vague answers.
In short, I don't like the film. In order to go into more detail I'm going to have to spoil it, and I'll also spoil another film and a game, so consider this your-
---SPOILER WARNING---
...
Now you're good and warned, I can explain how frustrating and dumb this film is.
Throughout the film, The Major keeps seeing a robot girl out the corner of her eye, reflected in TV screens, shower door, only to not be there when she turns around. It's cool and all ghost like. Turns out that the girl is really there, but her perceptions were altered so she couldn't see it, but the alteration didn't account for reflections. A cool twist. ...but that raises questions, like why did they use a little girl robot that could easily be seen by accident, noticed by neighbours, etc. Why not use a spy camera or something of that nature? The reason for doing it also don't make much sense, since the villains try to kill her multiple times. Again, you have an invisable exploding spy robot in her house.
This isn't the only way this is used. It is revealed that the breif case containing a CD and a gun was also not real. The case was empty, or only contained the CD, it's not clear. But the thing is, she's been using this pretend gun throughout the film. Did no one mention that she was pointing and shouting bang? And how did she block a sword with it?
See, the whole "X is crazy!" can work really well in the hands of a great writer. Fight Club answers it's own questions and makes the second viewing different because you can see all the ways the twist works, and explains why characters say and do the things they do. In the hands of a bad writer, you end up with something like Spec Ops: The Line, where it raises more questions than it answers. "Why does no one tell walker he's shouting at a broken radio?", "Why does no one say anything when Walker is agonizing over shooting a corpse?", and hand waving it as "Walker is crazy!" creates even more plot holes, and hand waving those away creates even more, until either the whole plot is either broken, or doesn't matter.
GITS: Arise: Ghost Pain is that. It's a badly done mystery, a badly done twist, and a badly done origin story. To steal a joke from a friend, you're time would be better spent taking a nap than watching this film.
