Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
1stDecame4Danime
Following up GitS with a sequel centered on that cybernetic incarnation of blandness, brick shithouse soldier guy, Blando was definitely a choice they could've gone without, especially since we get to watch his story play out with almost 0 stakes since he's now plot-armored by god of the machine Major... God there is so much wrong with this movie.
Starts off very slow with a bunch of directorial vomit of more chopped in environmental shots and more bodies bodying, (it's just so goddamn unsubtle with its hamfisted symbolisms/quotes, juvenile philosophizings/dialogue, and yes copy and paste the entire sequence of constructing machine bodies bodying again for minutes just like the previous movie for blatant nostalgia fanpandering, but I digress) The sexdoll murder mystery police-procedural i…
Read at the sourceViolentPete
Feels like a parody of the first one. The story is the same general "We have to catch this villain with mysterious motives" plotline that shows up in half of Oshii's movies, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Issue is, GitS and Patlabor 2 were a lot more interesting and I just watched both of those, and by comparison this just doesn't have the extra spice to make it stand out. Batou's the main character this time but he isn't nearly as interesting as the Major, and a solid 50% of the script is dedicated to quoting philosophy. You could ask Batou what he had for breakfast today and he'd probably give you a Bible verse followed by a Confucius quote, then that wailing music would suddenly start playing for 30 seconds or so. The first movie actually brought up some interesting ideas about wh…
Read at the sourceZhaitan
I thought the 1995 Ghost in the Shell movie was alright. It had a story that (eventually) made sense. People talked to each other in a way that could reasonably be considered realistic. The music had some variety. The visuals were pretty consistently decent looking.
Innocence has none of this. The story is terrible. What you read in the synopsis is the whole story. The answer to the question is given in the span of 30 seconds at the end of the movie. It was not interesting or exciting. The story is mostly delivered through long stretches of exposition where they drop 3+ names and 5 philosophy quotes. Something like:
"This crime family killed this guy who killed this guy who saw this guy but then this other guy got killed by these people for this corporation. let a man walk alone, let him…
Read at the sourceephemerry
Like Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer, Innocence is much more of a "Mamoru Oshii" film, than it is a "Kōkaku Kidōtai" production. It has all the makings of a Ghost in the Shell story, as far as the theme and setting goes, but the ambience is more idiosyncratic with the sensibilities of the director. Some of the fluid motions are much more advanced than anything I have ever seen in a cell-animated film, it appears much more neoteric than a movie made way back in 2004! And yet, the script gets stuck ankle-deep, in a pile of sludge.
⚠️ This review for Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence will have spoilers ⚠️
—Story/Characters
The way the center of the plot falls through, is like a bowling ball through a damp sheet of paper—it really bothered me! The cinematography, the overall message, and…
Read at the sourceDavilane
It's hard to explain to its full extent the pure disappointment and even at times frustration I had watching this movie. It really is hard to believe it was made by the same director, mostly in part to how it lacks almost everything that made the original 1995 movie the classic that it is today.
Where the original arguably shined its brightest was in its brevity. It only had a runtime of 82 minutes, with a pretty short script to boot, but it got across everything it needed to and more in that time span. It had poignant philosophical themes, atmospheric and memorable music, great world building, through dialogue and visual storytelling, as well as some gorgeous animation and action scenes to keep it from feeling stale. Innocence seems to miss almost all of this completely, with decent 2D a…
Read at the sourceezbie
I watched this and the first Ghost in the Shell one after the other, and my verdict is that this show is just very bad. It stands in a stark contrast to the first Ghost in the Shell movie, which I consider to be very well produced and gave it a 9 here in on MAL. The reasons for me to see it as a bad show are the following.
1.well, the Arts is bad, mainly due eto the mix of 2D animation with 3D graphical computing which doesn't blend well. Whereas the 2D design itself isn't bad, the scenes are often way too dark and the 3D graphics are ugly. Also, they give 2 to 3 minutes of screen time to nonsensical and ugly 3d scenes every now and then.
2.soundtrack is a cheap copy and paste of the first show's. Whereas sound fx are good, there's only one song (apart of the backing themes) that's pl…
Read at the sourceTeKSMeLater
The Palme d'Or is one of the most prestigious awards in the world of film, coming from the highly respected Cannes Film Festival. For a film to get nominated for the prize is in and of itself a great merit that deserves praise. Within the few of several animated films that bring about a huge influential force within the industry and art itself, there's only been one Japanese animated film that was ever nominated for the said award.
Regarded as even more dense and rich in philosophical detail than its predecessor, Mamoru Oshii's follow-up to the widely successful Ghost in the Shell, Innocence, is a visual feast of intricate design and narrative. With a nine-year difference between the two films, it could be said that Innocence was a highly anticipated sequel. Yet with as much consensual pr…
Read at the sourceVeiledEdge
Ghost in the Shell 2 looks, sounds, and feels like Ghost in the Shell, but it's not. Not at all. This movie has absolutely no substance whatsoever. The execution was amazing, but as they say, you can put a tuxedo on a pig...
The movie is still a good action movie, and it does a trippy scene near the end that's pretty cool. It's gorgeous and sounds great as well. The action scenes are good and well thought out, I mean, look at my score. That's a decent score. It's a good movie. Just don't expect Ghost in the Shell quality of work here. I would not recommend this to anyone who hasn't seen the rest of the Ghost in the Shell franchise. This should be near the bottom of your list. Go watch some good Ghost in the Shell first, then, come back to this if you have time.
Read at the sourceDai_to
The story picks up some time after Ghost in the shell. The exact events leading up to Innocence are left in obscurity. What we do know is that after Kusanagi's existential meltdown. Our new star, burly biomechanical Batou (Kusanagi's former partner), investigates a series of murders caused by malfunctioning androids. As Batou digs deeper into this mystery, he slowly begins to uncover a conspiracy and the shocking identity of the source of these malfunctions is eventually revealed.
Art & Animation: 10/10
a large part of Innocence's appeal is in its appearance. The film is made of pure gorgeous. The characters are smoothly and realistically animated (particularly striking is a touching scene between Batou and his adorable Basset Hound). The art direction is much more dynamic, with the drab,…
Read at the sourcespacemonkey93
I will try to give a quick review as for someone who is checking if the movie is worth it, what to expect, spoiler free.
The story is a direct sequel to the original Ghost in the Shell movie, although this time it's more centered around Batou, I guess you could say it's a stand alone case or mission involving... yes you guessed it, cyborgs. I recommend of course watching the prequel first, if you already did you know it deals with some philosophical ideas, but this movie takes it way further, it explores some subjects with much more attention and screen time, I guess if you're familiar or intrigued by philosophy this will be great, otherwise you can still enjoy it, has great action and plot.
The art is amazing, couldn't give it less than 10. It's beautiful overall, there are epic scenes…
Read at the sourcektulu007
Welcome, my Friends, to the last film festival week review of the year. We've looked at a lot of films. Some well known. Some more obscure. Some tied to popular franchises, some stand alone adaptations. We started the week with a call back to last year's film festival and we're going to end the same way. So, let's take another look at Production I.G's Ghost in the Shell franchise. Last year, I took a look at the first film, which was excellent. This year it's time to look at the second film. Co-produced by Studio Ghibli, this is Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence.
Story: The Major has gone missing. Our hero in this installment is Batou. The story opens with Batou being called to the scene of a crime to investigate a murder committed by a prototype sex robot. It seems like a job for the regu…
Read at the sourceVIZGIX
What can I say about this anime.... well really, plot just devolved horribly after the first part. I have always enjoyed the Ghost in the Shell series.. The original movie, the two Stand alone complex animes, and of course, Arise, but this movie is one MAJOR exception. One thing I had to realize with the GitS franchise, was that I wanted everything to be understandable, logical, and explainable. However, at certain points the plot there is just a tendency for it to "pull things outta its ***" and cleverly disguise it as being SO WELL thought out, that most people cant completely follow it. This Movie takes THAT aspect of the series, and makes a movie out of it..... yeah, so it gets really tripy about halfway into the movie, and you just go along for the ride, and HOPE things get explained,…
Read at the sourceHiImAnAlien
When Oshii directed the first Ghost in the Shell he didn't just adapted the original manga, but rather made from it something of its own. Whit the second movie, rather than to give something more accessible to the viewer, he made it into something even more personal.
Story:
It’s more of a standard story than that of the previous movie or the arc of the SAC series, it’s basically just a detective story that deals whit the exploitation of technology for sex. So, while a step back in this regard, it’s good that the animated franchise tries to deal whit cyber-punk themes from different perspectives. The first information we get makes the story start as a mystery and the conclusion is also unexpected taking what seems like a very simple premise, thus the story has a great start and conclusion…
Read at the sourcekorison
Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, is the sequel to the movie Ghost in the Shell. It was released in 2004 by Production I.G, who are known for many other works, such as Psycho Pass and Guilty Crown.
Story: The story of GitS 2 doesn't depend on the first movie as much, as you might think considering it's something like a sequel. After the Major vanished, Batou and Togusa, are investigating a series of murders commited by Androids that kill their owners, before comitting suicide. The story is just as complex as the one of it's prequel, but a bit better to understand.
8/10
Characters: The characters are pretty much the same as in the first movie with the sad exception of the Major. It is not much to say since we simply dive a bit deeper into those we already know.
8/10
Visuals: The visuals of…
Read at the sourcevtiger
Let's just say that when I watched Blade Runner right after watching GITS Innocence (being quite a fan of Ridley's immortal masterpiece and admiring its style and sfx which were a herculean achievement for its age) - the style, music, color palette and pacing of Oshii's movie simply make the prior seem almost like a color-uncoordinated arrhythmia-paced flick (though I admit that having the same amount of control over post-production as allotted by modern technology would probably even the odds for Mr. Ridley, but as things stand Mr. Oshii is ahead by a head).
The storyline by itself is nothing to write home about: after all it's purpose here is to simply to provide a backdrop for the exposition of the universe of the movie, the art, the basset hound and anything else the creators were thi…
Read at the sourceSpagglespook
GITS Innocence is very much spiritual successor to the original GITS film, at least in terms of presentation of storyline and interspersion of philosophy.
Innocence is a film that will appeal to some people, but others will either find the story too lacking or smothered with philosophical guff. To be perfectly honest I found the story to be extremely simplistic and shallow, there really isn't much depth here unless if you look to the quotation of classics or philosophy as depth. Almost all of the dialogue in the film is devoted to quotation, it becomes quite tedious after a while - not least because there isn't much necessary framing for those quotations.
The supposed point this endless quoting is to question artificial concepts that have no real bearing on our world, so it ultimately fe…
Read at the sourceYukushi
I watched the first movie quite a while ago (what, I was fourteen?) but the second one definitely lives up to the name of “Ghost in the Shell”.
I daresay I understood this movie better than the first (maybe because I’ve matured, or maybe because the presentation was simplified), but it does require the viewer to have a philosophical way of thinking. This isn’t on the level of Evangelion. Evangelion is grade school maths compared to this.
"Let one live alone doing no evil, care-free, like an elephant in an elephant forest."
The questioning of reality, existence and morality is constantly challenged in this film. Heck, the scene in Kim’s mansion is pure gold. What does it mean to be human? How can we be sure that we're living in reality? It isn't spoon-fed to the viewer, and nor is it so…
Read at the sourceAlchemistx4
The movie was simply amazing visually and left me awe struck in several scenes. The amount of attention to detail and quality that went into every frame must have been immensely labor intensive and time consuming. As a result, this may very well be the best looking anime movie I have seen ever seen and the experience is enhanced by the wonderful sound design which fits perfectly into ever scene.
On the substance side of things, the plot was very compelling, and as can be expected from a GITS, the dialog that the characters engaged in was fantastic although a little bit heavy on the philosophical side which can leave you confused in some instances. To a certain extent, the plot development suffered as a result. People will definitely need to watch it against to fully grasp or at least bett…
Read at the sourceVurtox
No one can ever know to understand.
They can only hope to understand.
What is life, what means reality? Why does man pursue the creation of artificial life? Where do we draw the line between human and machine? What classifies the perfect species?
Ghost in the Shell: Innocence might very well fare as a compendium of philosophy due to the manifold questions it not only brings up but most often also provides the viewer with unique - maybe obscure at times - in any way thought-provoking arguments.
The movie depicts a state of cold surreality in an eerie and sterile environment. The distinction between the organic and inorganic, between actual experience or artificial memory is of central significance.
"The imperfect nature of human perception causes the incompleteness of reality." As we…
Read at the sourceanime_junkie
Although a slighty confusing and very philosophical story, it flows very well and comes together seamlessly in the end. The animation was beautiful, fluid and lifelike. The CG blended well and made each frame stand out. An awesome soundtrack that set the mood very well. There was gradual character development but it just seemed to fill in where the first movie left off. Overall a very good anime but not a very accessible one. The story was very cryptic at times with a very serious undertone that require concentration. Not as much action but what it lacks makes up in atmosphere and detail. Watch if you feel up for a strongly scripted movie which may leave you pondering the many issues it brings up.
Read at the source