ehalcomb: Innocence (Ghost in the Shell) || Anime Review

Innocence is boring. This 2004 sequel to the 1995 hit Ghost in the Shell is generic, uninteresting, and boring. I dropped it at about 70 minutes in because I was not invested in the story whatsoever. Why is this? The previous movie and all the other anime based on the franchise are mostly critically acclaimed so why does this one fail where the others have excelled at?

I believe that the problems with Innocence start at the beginning. In this film, it has been quite some time since The Major and Batou have parted ways and since then The Major has been declared MIA. Batou is assigned a new partner, Tosuga, and has been assigned with solving the mystery of the sex doll murders. That's right! A number of customers who have bought androids for their private needs are dying from the hands of their toys. Skipping how needlessly stupid this is in order to get across a point, Batou and Tosuga have to find out who is really behind these murders, if anyone at all.

This whole plot dealing with the murderous androids exists to get across the question of "What actually is a human?" Our two detectives have to ponder this question while reciting quotes from long-since-dead people over and over again until my ears bleed. I'm not joking. Batou and most of the other characters constantly quote Caesar and you-name-it in order to sound philosophical when, in reality, they just sound stupid. I don't even think the initial plot is that bad but I don't care about any of the characters involved. For the majority of the film, it seems like the characters themselves don't even care about finding the answer to this rather deep question.

The utter lack of enthusiasm for action or mystery that any of the characters have isn't the only reason that I was never hooked on Innocence. The problem is that there was never hook to begin with. I get the feeling that the writers wanted Batou to somehow connect this theme with his past with The Major but that plotline is dropped so quickly and cleanly that I don't even get the chance to be intrigued as to where it might go. Because of all this, it makes for a story that is very unfocused at best and at worst just hard to continue with.

One aspect of the original Ghost in the Shell film that I praised it for was its animation. Innocence bumps up the quality of the 2D animation significantly and makes each movement of each character seem very natural and unique. The 3D animation is where it really suffers as, though it isn't necessarily bad, it doesn't fit with the style of the 2D segments at all and is way too heavily used. It seems like most of the backgrounds and anything that isn't a main character is CG which, in a way, explains as to why the quality of the 2D animation is so high; because there is very little of it.

Ghost in the Shell's soundtrack wasn't very great but it did fit the mood of the film. I can say the exact same thing about Innocence's soundtrack. This isn't because the quality of each soundtracks are the same but because each of the soundtracks are the same. The same generic tracks are used over and over again and, honestly, got a little grating on the ears.

Overall, Innocence is a huge let down and not at all what I was expecting from a sequel to a fairly great film. However, one thing that I can applaud this film for is that it helped me appreciate the original far more than I did before.

Innocence (Ghost in the Shell) is dull.