With the upcoming release of the Scarlett Johansson live action Ghost in the Shell, I admit to having gotten curious to revisit what I could of the original series.

I picked up the three new trade hardbacks reprinting the comic books and found them…ok.  The first book was the best but even that one, alas, didn’t impress me here and now as much as it probably would have when it was first released.  The original 1995 animated Ghost in the Shell movie, likewise, was recently revisited by me and while I enjoyed the film, I was surprised by its non-ending (you can read my full review here).  It was almost like the movie was a prologue to a longer, more involved story, one that I suppose came with 2004’s Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence.

While I enjoyed the original Ghost in the Shell animated film, I must admit its sequel left me…weary.

The story, what there is of it, involves robots that are turning on their masters and killing them, and the investigation lead by Batô, the original cyborg partner of the Major (the character Scarlett Johansson plays in the new movie), and Togusa (also a character from the original film) into those killings.

Their partnership, in true movie form, is an uncomfortable one, with the more “human” Togusa worrying about his wife and child and the far less emotional Batô willing to push things as far as needed to solve the case.  He’s also not afraid of violence.

I’ll be blunt here: I didn’t like the film.

While its premise was intriguing enough, the film, to me, had difficulties setting a tone and sticking with it.  What should have been a good action/adventure with some intriguing questions about humanity in the age of cybernetics instead became too often too dull with those ruminations.  Further, it was so clear, even from the opening minutes, that (SPOILER, I suppose) the Major would make a re-appearance after her “disappearance” in the original film that this proved to be the only thing keeping me watching.

As a character Batô isn’t bad, but in the first film he worked because he was a secondary character and our focus was on the enigmatic Major.  In this film, Batô is the main character and his emotionlessness becomes…dull.

Indeed, there was only one sequence in the film that I found incredibly enjoyable, and that was Batô and Togusa’s visit to a Yakuza den.  It was action filled and, especially, hilarious in the set-up and payoff.

I just wish the rest of the film had that vibe.

Visually, this film, like the original Ghost in the Shell, is very pretty, though some of the computer generated images show their age.  When the film was released in 2004, I suspect the computer graphics were quite state of the art but in terms of computer graphics 2004 is a very, very long time ago and it shows.

Anyway, if you liked the original animated Ghost in the Shell and are curious to see the story’s continuation, you should probably check out Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, if only to see where things go.

Just tamper down your hopes.  The sequel, while enjoyable in spurts, doesn’t do so as a whole.