SOUNDTRACK
Kenji Kawai returns to direct the soundtrack for Innocence, with the screech choir making a return as well with the movie's intro.
Though, aside from that, not many other tracks stand out.
Soundtrack score: 6.75/10
ANIMATION QUALITY
This movie has a very high production value, with extensive use of 3D graphics, especially in the iconic parade scene in the middle, with gratuitous displays of colours and movement. There's also a gunfight scene that's well-animated.
The animation quality is the best aspect of this movie, that much I'll say.
Animation Quality Score: 9.0/10
CHARACTERS
Because of the Major’s fate at the end of the previous movie, Batou takes the helm, with Togusa as his new partner. However, their partnership does become strained as the investigation goes no, with Batou taking more risks to get a break in the case, with Togusa trying to keep up and not getting killed, just so he could go back to his daugther in one piece.
One of Togusa’s interesting points as a character is his investigation prowess despite being mostly human compared to Batou, a full cyborg. While this was prominent in the previous movie, it wasn’t really shown here, as most of the dialogue between him and Batou are philosophical in nature, instead of focusing on the investigation itself, a letdown if you ask me.
There were also Chinese lines later, which was interesting.
Characters score: 6.50/10
PLOT
The movie still takes place in the same city with a Hong Kong vibe to it just like the first movie.
While the case of the gynoids murdering their owners seems like a regular one at first, more complications turn up the deeper Batou and Togusa investigate the case, such as the cryptic audio message, and even mafia involvement later on, whose boss was also killed by a gynoid.
Though, even without considering the Major’s absence in the sequel, there are a few things that significantly bogged down the plot:
1) Conversations focusing heavily on philosophy and quotes, instead of the actual investigation. If you ask me, the point of the Ghost in the Shell movies is to explore cyberpunk and android themes, and one way to carry out this is to explain things about the world or the case itself as the investigation goes on. It’s just that the movie kept focusing on the line between man and machine too much that it just devolved into abstract philosophy, instead of talking about cool things like gadgets, robot hardware, weapons, security protocols, all that good jargon that the original movie had.
2)A hacking scene covering the middle 1/3 of the movie. While the explanation itself was interesting, it was needlessly drawn out and took up a lot of screen time, which isn’t good as the movie had a run time of barely 1.5 hours.
Aside from a few references to the original movie, there was very little connection between the two titles. What happened to Section 6 and their secrets? Did Section 9 expose them, or was everything swept under the rug? Not a lot that, unfortunately.
The movie did manage to wrap up and explain the entire case by the movie’s conclusion, so I’ll give it credit for that.
Plot score: 6.5/10
SCORE SUMMARY
Soundtrack score: 6.75/10
Animation Quality Score: 9.0/10
Characters score: 6.50/10
Plot score: 6.5/10
CONCLUSION
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is one of those movies that look good, with not much else. I don't mean to be harsh when I say this, but it seems like the sequel was riding on the hype of the first movie. Since it doesn't really add much to the original movie timeline, it's not worth a watch if you ask me. You're better off exploring the Stand Alone Complex timeline after the 1995 movie.
