“Ghost In The Shell” is a beautifully animated and rather intelligent sci-fi film from Japan. It might not be as good as “Akira” or “My Neighbour Totoro” but it’s a fairly slick picture that asks a lot of tough questions about artificial intelligence and humanity.

We enter a futuristic world in which human beings live alongside cyborgs and there exists a means to communicate with others through some form of connection via implants. In this increasingly robotised world, a cyborg policewoman, Major Motoko Kusanagi, comes to question her existence whilst tracking down a cybernetic criminal known as the ‘Puppet Master’.

The characters in “Ghost In The Shell” engage in many philosophical conversations and one even quotes “The Bible”. The characters look excellent and I love the invisibility effect given to some of the characters when they use their ability to cloak themselves. Although the characters have deep and meaningful conversations, we always feel a certain sense of formality and perhaps this was done to further emphasise how artificial these characters are. I was a little confused by the motive of the villain and not enough screen time is given to the Puppet Master for you to really understand where he was coming from.

“Ghost In The Shell” is somewhat convoluted, it’s rather hard to follow at times and some may find themselves underwhelmed by the briefness of the action sequences. The film is in no sense a kids’ cartoon as there are exploding heads, countless shots of nudity and a very disturbing feel to it all. The film is very stylish in its execution and I imagine anime fans will adore this if that haven’t already seen it but I can see this film being lost on the masses. It is a confusing movie but don’t let that fool you into think it isn’t a good film.