Reviewed by James Quicksell

Back in the beginnings of 2003 I remember a poll that Jeff Ching had about the most anticipated movie for 2003. Wasting no time I quickly choose Ghost In The Shell. My excitement for this movie extends from not only the previews that I saw but the unfortunate (for me anyways) encounter with the ending of GITS on Redwampa's website. All I needed was to see the ending to realize how awesome of a movie this was going to be. So when late 2003 came and Spencer Crabb posted that GITS was released I eagerly downloaded and to my surprise the movie was definitely more than I had anticipated.

Not having ever see the anime, or even really being a fan of anime for that matter, I was slightly lost when the movie started. But I quickly picked up on the story and became immersed in the world of what I assumed is Tokyo. The gist of the story is that in the city the different sectors were competing to build security cyborgs and dispatch them around the city. Sounds pretty much like a business competition story huh? Well in a sense. There is a lot of underlying story underneath that simple plot which brings us to Sector 7's newest and most sophisticated security cyborg named Motoko (Jaymond). Motoko is quickly established as the main character so to speak, at least on the side of 'good' if you want to call it that. The story then unfolds into a complex of plans laid out by Lexen (Jaymond) who is the head of an organization that builds cyborgs not smarter than, but with a better combat system, than Sector 7 cyborgs such as Motoko. The interesting thing about this movie is that there seems to be two enemies. One is the obvious one, Lexen, whilst the other one stays in the shadows and is only referred to as The General.

I find it interesting that this General character actually plays a minor role throughout the movie but in the big scheme of things he seems to be under control of the city more than even Lexen, who seems to control an entire sector. One such clue would be Lexen freaking out when The General asks to chat. Another might even be the fact that during the end of the movie when The General's helicopter is flying away we see the police chief, whom we thought was just being thrown in jail, bound and gagged at the feet of the militant leader.

But enough about The General and such lets get to the real meat and potatoes. The action in GITS is wonderful. Just simply amazing at times. One scene in particular is when Motoko visits a drug dealer (Midbackman) and engages several of his cronies in combat. The end result is one of the most well choreographed action scenes I've ever seen. Just the way Redwampa detailed so many things such as shadow and light reflections off of guns and realistic looking blood is just mind-blowing. Another scene that shines is when Lexen's best cyborg is purposely set free from his holding tank. Everything from the breaking out of the tank to the guard being slaughtered in that one part alone is frightening...literally. Not to mention the next part with the security bot chasing him was not only incredibly well animated but the music matching it makes me wish I ran on a Windows 98 machine. Some may think I'm going a little overboard with this but trust me, just watch and you'll see what I mean.

The voice acting as well, though not the best, is still pretty damn good. As usual Jaymond takes control of the lead character (this time female!) and actually sounds convincing, which is hard to do. I could go on about Jaymond but it wouldn't be anything no one already knows. His role as Lexen was damn good as well. It was partially through Lexen's explanation to the investors about his company's plan that I realized how good he was acting. I was impressed. Jon Barton and Ramza Brave, both playing respectable minor roles, also came through. Jon sounding as Jon as usual but Ramza really shined.

As I said before I'm not big on anime but I have seen some anime and I'll admit I personally felt that Red and Spencer did a great job at trying to capture that same style for GITS. Some of the flashing scenes, the way the music worked with the cityscapes and such were all put together in such a way that wasn't quite anime but it was a good substitute that bolstered it to a level in which it was very enjoyable as a movie.

In essence, GITS truly was one of the best movies of 2003, in amongst all those other great movies. This was one of the rare occurrences where you could tell the work put into the movie and it made it feel real. I was so impressed by what came from those two years of hard work and for entertainment purposes it certainly paid off.

9.7/10