While the look of the film definitely appealed to me and managed to capture that anime feel really well, I was surprised to see a significantly simplified story with the AI component completely dropped and the ending changed. The film still delivers a coherent, yet more predictable story. Nowhere near as philosophical as the original, 'Ghost in the Shell' has been stripped down to appeal more to the mainstream audience. This is still a tale about identity and individuality. In the world of the story humans, cyborgs and robots co-exist. Some people augment their bodies as much as they can afford to while others prefer to stay pure. What makes us human? Our essence, our soul, our “ghost” is who we are, no matter if it is inside a biological or artificial body.

In the film someone has memories of a wife and kid implanted into his ghost and this is real and authentic to the affected person, even though everyone around him can prove that this data is false. Yet the memory is there, his feelings for people who do not exist are real to him and shape him. So who are we really? Memories? Experiences? Just data? Unfortunately the film doesn’t go any deeper into this. Given how our world is hooked on connectivity, exploring this side of the story could have made for a hard-hitting, poignant exploration of where we as a society seem to be heading. Instead we are given a sci-fi actioner with impressive visuals that feels a bit superficial while being thoroughly entertaining.

The acting is what you’d expect from an action film. We all know Johansson is capable of kicking some serious butt (where is our Black Widow film?!) and she proves this again in 'Ghost in the Shell'.
Why they chose to give her robotic movements is anyone’s guess given Major is supposed to be the first of her kind, a cyborg that can pass as a human. It looks weird at times and makes her come across as wooden. Pilou Asbaek delivers an engaging performance as Major’s sidekick Batou. Michael Pitt makes for an interesting antagonist (I loved his look). Juliette Binoche does all she can with what she’s given. But it is the only non-english speaker in the film, Takeshi Kitano, who gets the trophy for most memorable performance for his role of section 9 leader Aramaki. The characters were well captured from the source material, although only one of them is actually Asian. The whitewashing of the original material needs an essay on its own.

In the final act is when the films faces its biggest problems. The moral ambiguity that fuelled much of the interesting conflict is abandoned. Instead the plot is reliant on making twists and turns, which haven’t been earned and end up feeling unsatisfying and borderline silly, with muddy motivations being at the core of the problem. In the end 'Miss Sloane' offers some interesting ideas and engaging moments, but ultimately feels falls well short of its full potential.

The kids antics aren’t quite cute enough to endear us to them and as characters they’re pretty flat largely because the clunky script doesn’t give them anything believable to do. There’s a gentle “kids should get out more” message that doesn’t hold up considering these kids can barely go ten minutes without nearly getting killed in some irresponsible way. Kids outsmarting adults because they have a more simplistic view of the world is a fine plot device but this film fails to pull it off, these kids are just reckless and kind of stupid.

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This mix is the film’s greatest strength: unlike Sharon Stone’s Catherine Tramell, many of us know people like Michèle and her circle of friends. Thanks to Isabelle Huppert’s multilayered, internal yet transparent performance, we get drawn to her as if she were (like L’Avenir’s Nathalie) an everywoman protagonist, yet with the simmering fear she might be leading us on. And even as the end credits were rolling, I was sitting still, unable to get up and clueless as to what had just happened.

The supporting characters are also essential to this quasi mid-life crisis drama / thriller hybrid. For example, Michèle’s work environment is filled with employees who have something against her. Enough resentment for tasteless bullying, but not to reach full blown thriller level. Again, many of them look like the computer geeks and startupers we run into daily.

The same can be said of Michèle’s lover, of her neighbours, of her son... Each disarmingly normal, each with a chilling Shadow Self. This could happen next door. Unlike many thrillers, here there is no distance between us and them. This is also thanks to great casting and wonderful performances across the board (though Anne Consigny, Jonas Bloquet and Laurent Lafitte were particularly impressive. I only knew Lafitte from 'Les Petits Mouchoirs' and now hope to see more of his work).

Though 'Elle' often flirts with thriller clichés like an homage to the genre’s classics, the details and the reality it creates put the film apart from a great many, and also put it in the coveted position to take its audience to unsafe territories. Whatever it was I was expecting to see from the film, 'Elle' definitely took me somewhere else and a thousand shades darker. Darker definitely, but with heart nonetheless.

The Eilis (pronounced eye-lish in case you were wondering) we meet at the beginning of the film is a very different person to the one we have grown to love by the end. Unfortunately there’s only so much I can say about the film, it does what it does really well but whilst I like the film I do have to admit that there isn’t anything special about it. The story isn’t particularly original or meaningful, visually it’s clean but not that interesting, it’s just an extremely competent compelling film.

It’s nice that no element of the film feels superfluous and no character is extraneous, which is an overly wordy way of saying there’s never a dull moment with stand out characters such as Tony’s deliberately rude little brother and Julie Walters boarding house mistress bringing a well polished element of comedy. As I say, no inch is wasted and you really feel for all the characters but the film doesn’t excel in any particular area, it’s just good at everything.

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While Jamie (Jack Tracy) is the clear star of the show, the other characters are just as interesting and captivating once you get to know them. Especially William (William Cohen) and Matthew (Jacob Seidman), who round out the new trio of friends post-breakup, make for wonderful additions to the show and bring out a new side in Jamie. I have to admit that Episode 4 'Saying Yes', which I immediately dubbed the “friendship episode”, was my absolute favourite and these three shine throughout.

Jumping from one hook-up to the next Jamie is desperately trying to fill the void left by Jared. He needs them to feel good about himself and fight his loneliness. He cannot be alone even for a minute. This is perfectly captured in a scene where we see Jamie clinging to his phone like a lifeline. When the battery is empty and he has to wait for the first tiny bit to recharge before being able to use it again, his life literally comes to a stop. He sits on the floor, leaning against the wall that has the phone charger plugged into it, staring at the lifeless device, not sure what to do. Once it comes back to life he immediately comes out of the catatonic state he was in. The series has a few powerful moments like these, but I don’t want to give too much away.

The screenplay, Alisdair Siddons’ very first, has a dynamic rhythm and a fairly clear plot. However while some characters’ relationships really came to life, others, including Colby and Chad’s, felt at times a little nebulous. In a similar manner, Gordy’s place among the Cutlers doesn’t really have much of a narrative impact until the third act of the film, thus making Sean Harris’s lovely performance as the gang’s oddball a little wasted at times. Chad’s relationship with his wife Kelly, flawlessly played by Lyndsey Marshal, was on the other hand completely believable and anchored to the story. Fassbender’s best onscreen chemistry in the film is however with Rory Kinnear, who plays P.C. Lovage, a policeman who seems to have been after the Cutlers for quite some time.

From his very first appearance, Kinnear fuels the screen with the kind of tension any crime film requires. In addition, scenes between the two actors have an energy that makes each move completely unpredictable. As performers they seem to bring the best out of each other.
Another wonderful ingredient in the film are the car chases, which (of course) played an important part in the story. The first one created a very dynamic opening shot. Later, a car stint made as a protest created a playful cop and thieves sequence. The main heist in the film also led to a very good chase with a hilarious gas station stop, and later a gripping manhunt with a few particularly memorable details. Again, the final sequence also delivers in that department, setting up a surprisingly bittersweet closure to Chad’s family story.

Due to the nature of the film, writing more about it would probably hinder the experience of watching it with too many spoilers. So I’d rather not cover more aspects and instead will conclude that though the film might have benefited from a little fine tuning regarding some of the dynamics at play and character development, this was nonetheless a highly entertaining ride with a lively score by The Chemical Brothers. And last but not least, it was beautifully shot by Eduard Grau who, after his fantastic work on 'The Gift' and 'A Single Man', is now someone I will definitely look out for.

On the other side of things the Marine Life Institute is played off somewhat neutrally. Whilst when push comes to shove the movie seems firmly set in the idea that animals should be free rather than in cages (or tanks in this instance), it’s not heavy handed with this message and the humans are never portrayed as the villains of the story.

On the negative it’s not as tight as the original, some of it feels a little needlessly rambling and the new characters perhaps aren’t as well rounded and interesting as say the shark support group or the dental offices fish tank inmates from the first movie. That being said the finale is perhaps an even bigger emotional experience than the original even though the build up might be a little slow to really hook you.