Scarlett Johansson has not only spurned traditional female roles, she doesn’t even play humans.
In “Her” (2013), “Under the Skin” (2013), and “Lucy” (2014) she’s played, respectively, a computer program, an alien, and a chemically enhanced superwoman. In the listless and banal “Ghost in the Shell,” Rupert Sanders’s (“Snow White and the Huntsman”) live-action remake of Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 anime classic of the same title, she combines all three. Maybe that’s why it’s the weakest of the lot.
In a dystopian future metropolis resembling the often imitated but never equaled cityscape of “Blade Runner” (1982), the bodies and brains of law enforcement agents have been augmented with computer and other technology. Major (Johansson) is the first to have her brain inserted into a totally cyborg body (Johansson wearing a skin-tight body suit that makes her look like a patchwork Barbie). The corporation that achieved this wants to use her as a prototype for a line of killing machines. “She’s not a machine, she’s a person,” says Dr. Ouelet (Juliette Binoche), the motherly mad scientist who created her. “She’s not a machine, she’s a weapon,” the head of the corporation corrects her.
Major’s latest assignment involves her hunting down an anonymous hacker who has been stealing the minds of cyborg scientists. In solving this meandering mystery she is assisted by Batou (Pilou Asbaek, who resembles Mugatu in “Zoolander”) and overseen by the paternal Professor X — or, rather, Aramaki (“Beat” Takeshi Kitano), the head of the agency. After many car chases, shootouts, and astonishing athletics (though you may be distracted by the ubiquitous hologram advertisements of the future), the team follows the clues to a scary figure in a Grim Reaper hood.
Or maybe Major, like Oedipus, is really searching for herself? Do people even have selves? Are identities and souls just a bunch of clichés spun out by teams of screenwriters? If these questions interest you, do yourself a favor and watch the 1995 original movie.
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GHOST IN THE SHELL
Directed by Rupert Sanders. Written by Jamie Moss, William Wheeler, and Ehren Kruger, based on the comic by Shirow Masamune. Starring Scarlett Johansson, Pilou Asbaek, “Beat” Takeshi Kitano, Michael Carmen Pitt, Juliette Binoche. At Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs; Jordan’s Furniture IMAX in Reading and Natick. 106 minutes. PG-13 (intense sequences of sci-fi violence, suggestive content, and some disturbing images). In English and Japanese, with subtitles.