I think this is a solid 6.5, so I'll round it up to 7, I believe most of the harsh critics come from the angle of being worried about rating it favourably due to the manufactured outrage (more on this to be addressed later under the spoiler section).
The movie is visually stunning, with many iconic scenes and technologies being portrayed almost scene for scene without being a direct copy due to the story adjustment, if you are a fan of anything Cyberpunk, this is pretty much the closest thing to looking like Neuromancer's world on a big screen with today's effects. The main critique I'd have would be for its less than subtle script, the dialogues are at times cringe worthy, and at other times redundant, where the writers felt the need to spell things out directly to the audience when everything is obvious from context.
That said, I enjoyed it thoroughly, it was well paced with amazing visual effects, locations and props. The casting was better than I'd expected, the story was decent, and I would fight the urge to let professional critics sway us from seeing this movie over some melodrama.
*SPOILERS BELOW*
As an East Asian living in the West, my main initial skepticism of the Scarlett Johansson casting upon viewing the trailers wasn't the fact that she is white, the same way I didn't worry about Attack on Titan sucking because everyone was yellow, but instead it was the impression that she may have shown too much femininity / emotion in the trailer clips, something Motoko was anything but, she is also growing as a female action star with her success in the Avenger series and Lucy, leading me to worry that this would become a mindless action movie.
The result however, had proved I'd worry too much, while not as philosophical on existential topics as the 1995 movie, it certainly was not dumbed down to a pure mindless action flick, the story adjustment and the "origin stories" are also welcomed in my opinion especially for the masses who may not have seen the original, whether if it's how she became the first fully integrated brain in an android cyborg, or Batou's eyes. The race change was clearly acknowledged in the story, and in my opinion, necessary, to enforce the story that her identity was forcibly taken away from her and erased. Whether she had been put inside a white body, or a black body, the change in race actually is more impactful than if it were the same race, remember how thought provoking it was when Motoko got put in the body of a little girl in the 1995 movie, or when she basically didn't need a physical body anymore?
I walked out of the cinema having seen it with 5 Asian friends, some from Hong Kong who welcomed the portrayal of their city in this ultra cyberpunk world, some from Japan who thought Scarlett Johannson did a good job, none of us were offended to the slightest, I wish people would stop using minorities as a means to make a living by either being professionally outraged on behalf of us, or purposefully inflame an issue, when there is nothing to be outraged about.
The movie is visually stunning, with many iconic scenes and technologies being portrayed almost scene for scene without being a direct copy due to the story adjustment, if you are a fan of anything Cyberpunk, this is pretty much the closest thing to looking like Neuromancer's world on a big screen with today's effects. The main critique I'd have would be for its less than subtle script, the dialogues are at times cringe worthy, and at other times redundant, where the writers felt the need to spell things out directly to the audience when everything is obvious from context.
That said, I enjoyed it thoroughly, it was well paced with amazing visual effects, locations and props. The casting was better than I'd expected, the story was decent, and I would fight the urge to let professional critics sway us from seeing this movie over some melodrama.
*SPOILERS BELOW*
As an East Asian living in the West, my main initial skepticism of the Scarlett Johansson casting upon viewing the trailers wasn't the fact that she is white, the same way I didn't worry about Attack on Titan sucking because everyone was yellow, but instead it was the impression that she may have shown too much femininity / emotion in the trailer clips, something Motoko was anything but, she is also growing as a female action star with her success in the Avenger series and Lucy, leading me to worry that this would become a mindless action movie.
The result however, had proved I'd worry too much, while not as philosophical on existential topics as the 1995 movie, it certainly was not dumbed down to a pure mindless action flick, the story adjustment and the "origin stories" are also welcomed in my opinion especially for the masses who may not have seen the original, whether if it's how she became the first fully integrated brain in an android cyborg, or Batou's eyes. The race change was clearly acknowledged in the story, and in my opinion, necessary, to enforce the story that her identity was forcibly taken away from her and erased. Whether she had been put inside a white body, or a black body, the change in race actually is more impactful than if it were the same race, remember how thought provoking it was when Motoko got put in the body of a little girl in the 1995 movie, or when she basically didn't need a physical body anymore?
I walked out of the cinema having seen it with 5 Asian friends, some from Hong Kong who welcomed the portrayal of their city in this ultra cyberpunk world, some from Japan who thought Scarlett Johannson did a good job, none of us were offended to the slightest, I wish people would stop using minorities as a means to make a living by either being professionally outraged on behalf of us, or purposefully inflame an issue, when there is nothing to be outraged about.
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