In “Ghost in the Shell,” a special team of police officers oversee crimes connected to computer espionage and other intelligence matters. The Major, our heroine, is made mostly of machine parts (she’s a bit like Robocop, her brain and her mental identity keeping alive by being housed in a “shell”). As weird events begin to happen in Tokyo, The Major uncovers a secret government project that has caused a computer program/virus to become “self-aware.” The self-aware computer identity wants to find its own “shell,” to be able to move about freely and to join the physical world of humans. Video: The 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen image looks very good, although it’s a bit on the soft side. I’m not saying that things look fuzzy or hazy. Rather, objects don’t look as sharply defined as you’d expect with an animated feature created partially on computers. Then again, as the characters are often illuminated by the computer monitors that THEY are using, perhaps the “softness” of the image is just an artistic result. Colors look stable and clean. Although a lot of the action is set in the dark, nothing ever becomes murky to the point of indistinguishability. Audio: The “Ghost in the Shell” DVD comes with two audio options: a Dolby Digital 5.1 English dub and the original DD 2.0 stereo Japanese track. The English dub is an excellent dub job. The actors convey the characters’ emotions capably, and the sound field is fairly enveloping (though not aggressively active and directional like the “Macross Plus” dubs). The 5.1’s LFE (low level effects), especially during music-only moments, enhance the moody atmosphere of the narrative. Final Thoughts: All in all this is an excellent movie and the Dvd itself is excellent. Worth every penny!
