Lightning Round: Turning Japanese

Asian Invasion time.

Given  the very nature of what “Ghost in the Shell” is, I’m not particularly convinced that any version of this property was going to suit whatever purpose the Hollywood executives that greenlit this film were hoping for it to achieve.

The manga responsible for the classic 1997 anime film focusing on a cyborg coming to grips with her own transhumanistic existence while hunting a criminal capable of hacking the minds of the cybernetically  enhanced is famous for its exploration of very cerebral and philosophical themes regarding identity, perception, and the altered course of human evolution with the introduction of technology serving as an x factor.

While it isn’t quite a slouch on style, with several entries of the franchise producing plenty of excellent action sequences, all of the flash and spectacle of the “Ghost in the Shell” franchise has always been subservient to the depiction of ideas that tend to be more esoteric than what standard film audiences go for.

Despite the best of intentions clearly put on display by the production crew and cast members, that is ultimately the undoing of “Ghost in the Shell (2017).”

All of the performances are absolutely top notch and combined with the astounding visual design, the movie is quite possibly one of the best live action adaptations of an anime ever made by sheer virtue of managing to faithfully represent the source material while still breath some of its own unique life into its production thanks to the skills of its acting talent. Between this film and “Snow White and the Huntsman,” I’m officially frothing at the mouth to see what Rupert Sanders could do with a competent screenplay because he’s managed to now build a career off of artfully polishing writing room duds.

The aforementioned screenplay however is unfortunately symptomatic of everything that holds the movie back from actualizing on its own creative potential.

With the more self reflective musings of human identity in the age of technology stripped in favor of a more generic corporate conspiracy plot to drive the action of the film forward, the bite of the concept is lost to a production that is meticulously crafted but nonetheless hollow.

“Ghost in the Shell (2017)” is a film that stands at an unfortunate crossroads; its brought to life by an acting cast and production staff that were clearly passionate about their source material that has to unfortunately contend with handling by writers that didn’t quite get what made that source material tick in order to assemble a movie commissioned by executives that clearly didn’t see anything more from the franchise than potential dollar signs that actual demographics probably wouldn’t support.

The final film comes up at about average but sits in an unfortunate territory of being too ambitious to be stupid but not thoughtful enough to reach the level of intelligence that could have pushed over into being legitimately good.

6 Arising Stand Alone Complex’s out of 10

I’ve honestly been on the fence about whether or not I was even going to bother touching this one.

I’ve made it no secret that I’ve carried a lifelong love for the “Power Rangers” franchise with a fondness for its developments after leaving behind its more iconic “Mighty Morphin’” days and while some seem fit to ridicule me for reading into children’s entertainment more than it was intended to be analyzed on the surface, I’d like to scoff right back at the hypocrisy of audiences that wants to blow off a method of storytelling that rewards creativity over lavish production, yet always seems ready to complain about Hollywood bloating movies up with the same expensive orgies of CGI that they repeatedly pay to watch just to bitch about it “ruining their childhoods.”

“Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers” is a dated, shapeless, mold for which the franchise that it kicked off learned to utilize as a skeletal structure for which actual character and detail would be filled in to better effect with later seasons so as you can imagine, the prospect of making a big budget movie about a franchise whose primary claim to fame is that it has maintained an illusion for children of having larger than life stakes on a shoe string budget for nearly 2½ decades and helmed by people with understandably little passion for their material just doesn’t sound particularly appealing to me as a fan of the property, a critic of Hollywood’s barrel bottom scraping for film ideas and as a person of passable taste in media period.

The only 2 factors that pushed me over my resistance to even view the film, much less discuss it is that it ultimately surprised me in one key area that I didn’t expect it to nail (and that I only dreamed the show itself was daring enough to venture into) and for all my gripes of being unwilling to view it objectively, everything wrong with the film ironically has nothing to do with its own material.

That major surprise in question is the characters. Diversity may be a popular talking point for the entertainment industry today but this casts talents go a long way towards bringing to life an endearing cast of characters that almost saves the film by actually remembering that likeable characters are the corner stone of every worthwhile superhero story.

The little quirks like RJ Cyler’s interpretation of Billy being a high-functioning autistic or Ludi Lin’s Zack dealing with assimilation difficulties offer fresh perspectives to a cast of “Breakfast Club” wannabe archetypes and the chemistry between them all could easily fool you into thinking you were in for a real treat, a far cry from the gritty for the sake of gritty tone that the marketing appeared to carry.

Where the movie falls apart unfortunately is just about everywhere else.

When “Power Rangers” needs to actually be about Power Rangers and their heroic antics the film faceplants flat out embarrassingly; Brian Cranston phones in a performance so dry you would swear he Skyped in each line read after having woken up only minutes ago, Bill Hader’s high energy take on Alpha 5 gets grating fast and while I’m sure that she’ll have her defenders,  Elizabeth Banks’ talent is wasted as her Rita Repulsa feels less like a cunning space sorceress and more like homeless woman on bath salts aimlessly wandering in whatever costume the production crew paid her $20 to model in.

The stakes and mythology are never very clearly laid out from beginning to end which do little to make the god awful aesthetic of the film anymore endearing, which somehow looks lower budget than the cheap and equally ill-conceived “Power/Rangers” fan film released to YouTube 2 years ago.

And the most damning thing about all of this is that it all could have been forgiven if it led to some imaginative action sequences but 80% of the films length is focused squarely on the main characters working through their teenage angst in bonding sequences completely independent of the actual “Power Rangers” material.

As a result, the concepts related to the namesake of the franchise are crammed into a soulless and bland 25 minute climax sequence overloaded with visual diarrhea that wouldn’t have been impressive 10 years ago even if it wasn’t so painfully whiplashing against the film’s established tone in an insulting effort to milk more nostalgia dollars out of parents of children and people that can’t let the 90s die.

“Power Rangers” does more right than I ever would have expected out of it but when that bar is set so low that I’m essentially praising you for remembering to tell a story involving characters rather than actually do it well, that’s nothing to write home about.

4 Zeo Crystal Shards out of 10

It’s a damn shame that Funimation didn’t push for a 2016 wide release for this one because I would have been thrilled to put on my best of 2016 list. For now however, “Your Name” sits in the nebulous zone of in between releases that I can only offer praise when brought up in conversation.

“Your Name” is the sixth animated feature from critical darling Makoto Shinkai and while the man has been gradually building up a reputation as the second coming of Hayao Miyazaki, a comparison that he admittedly denounces as hyperbolic, I’ll admit that it has taken me quite some time to warm up to him.

He certainly has one hell of a visual eye but I’ve found many of his early works to be a bit too murky in their plotting and anticlimactic in their pay off. It wasn’t until 2007’s “5 Centimeters per Second” that he really came into his own, taking his penchant for landscape shots and character monologues and applying them to a fitting story about growing up and accepting that as beautiful as it may be, first love is not necessarily true love.

Fitting then that “Your Name,” a body swapping romance about two teenagers forced to learn about each other’s lives while coming to grips with the reality that certain obstacles may hinder them from getting to truly meet one another, is a strong and polished entry in a line of films that he has since released that reinvigorates the tired “Freaky Friday” storyline with something more fittingly dramatic, lightly humorous, and heartfelt.

Following city boy Taki and country girl and shrine maiden Mitsuha, the two attempt to maintain each other’s lives whenever the switch occurs while learning about and trying to help each other while gradually unfolding the mystery of why the switch is occurring.

While the gradual build up of the mystery touches on the coming of age themes that Shinkai has shown himself to specialize in handling with damn good reason, the only real flaws in the film come in pacing and focus.

Taki and Mitsuha’s romance is sweet and heartwrenching to sit through while managing to avoid a lot of the more saccharine tropes of teenage love stories but the lopsided focus on Mitsuha’s perspective left me wanting to understand Taki just a little bit more than I did. Now the reasoning for this does come satisfyingly to a head by the time of the movie’s third act but combined with its tendency to draw out dramatic tension a bit longer than necessary, the resolution of their relationship does become a bit undercut as a result.

For any of the film’s minor hiccups in these regards however, “Your Name” nevertheless fires on all cylinders for anybody seeking a more unique romance that's unflinchingly emotional without dipping into the sappiness that tends to sink the genre, surfacing as an exceptional exercise of showing over telling despite having large chunks of the narrative relayed as character narration.

 8 Disastrous Celestial Phenomena out of 10