This adaptation of the manga (previously also adapted as an anime) has been one of James Cameron’s dream projects for the better part of twenty years. It’s set about six hundred years in the future, two hundred years after a cataclysm has left the majority of humanity living in one giant city, underneath the mysterious paternalism of a floating world who are served resources by the ground dwellers and in turn drop their scraps back down (and yes, the metaphor is pretty much that blatantly obvious). When a cyborg falls into the scrapyard and a doctor specialising in cyborg creation gives her a body, she’s drawn into the complex power structures, violent battles against those that would exploit the city, and romance with an eager young man with a few secrets.
Like most dream projects, this does suffer slightly from insufficient distance from trying to achieve too much in too short a time (this has a running time just over two hours, and summarises the first two volumes of the manga) – there’s a heck of a lot of story in here, and some performers and story beats go distinctly under-served (in particular, Jennifer Connelly feels like her character has a lot to go through but it’s all done in broad stokes without the moments of detail it really requires). But it’s still good to see an ambitious sci-fi epic onscreen – and the combination of Cameron and Robert Roduiguez on directing duties means this has cutting edge effects work, including some gorgeous bright 3d. It’s also somewhat more violent than the trailers may be leading some to expect (it’s trying the “cyborg violence doesn’t count as violence” thing, but still, some of this is pretty intense., including one off-camera moment with a dog), and in some places it feels a little too overstuffed with plot and background, and there’s a couple of ropey acting bits (in particular the romantic lead comes across blander than he probably should). But never the less I enjoyed this as a good deep sci-fi delve.
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