Rating: ***
Director: Mamoru Oshii
Music: Kenji Kawai
Huh. Mamoru Oshii pulls a George Lucas with this pointless update to his classic animated masterpiece, "Ghost In The Shell" (1995). It boasts remastered visuals, 3D computer animation, and re-recorded dialog, and the results are as baffling as they are awful. About five minutes worth of animation has been replaced with computer imagery, which not only looks bad, but destroys the visual continuity of the film. Why? It's about as disruptive as randomly sticking pieces of live action footage into the film. Major Kusanagi is the only character who gets re-rendered, but only for scenes in which she's naked, which is pretty tasteless. I picked the film up out of curiosity, and while it's not an outrage like the re-imagined "Star Wars" films, it's puzzling and a complete waste of time. What was director Oshii thinking? His recent films seem to indicate that he's losing his mind and continuing to lose touch with reality. Track down the original version instead. You'll be glad you did.