“GHOST IN THE SHELL”
Ghost in the Shell is beautiful to look at, its nameless Asian city resembling Blade Runner’s dystopian future Los Angeles complete with even more, and larger, holographic advertisements cutting though the dreary concrete landscape. What’s missing in the milieu are a heart, soul, and brain – even though all of those things are constantly mentioned as integral to the imitative narrative.
“LIFE”
Sci-fi thriller Life halfheartedly goes through the motions of a monster in space movie, failing to raise any intriguing existential questions or validate the gory mayhem. A bunch of really smart people float around and do really stupid things, each of them speaking fluent exposition and sporting the thinnest of character traits. Their Martian antagonist is even less interesting.
