Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what movies I’ve seen over the past week. Below, you will find short reviews of those movies along with a star rating. Full length reviews may come at a later date.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

Ghost in the Shell

One of the things I dislike most about anime is the animation style isn’t always realistic and oftentimes, it looks a bit too rushed. Ghost in the Shell has both of these qualities in abundance.

The story about a futuristic world where cybernetics has improved to the point where consciousness can be subsumed and sublimated by technology. Where a person’s mind can be re-written and re-programmed. This is a world born out of ideas by Philip K. Dick. While considerably less bleak than Dick’s material, the film attempts some very weighty concepts, which succeed as often as they fail.

The vocal work, even discounting the translation-based out-of-sync lip movements, is less than impressive. Mimi Woods as Motoko Kusanagi is the only one who escapes those problems. The animation is solid in places, amateur in others, and the story feels like it abruptly ends. There are some compelling scenes that work visually in spite of all this, making it a passbly stylish production.