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The visuals and background were nice, but you could see where the animators cut corners. A lot of the characters, when speaking, are stock still and the lip movements don't seem to be synched with either Japanese or English (I know this seems to be a convention with anime, but it doesn't have to be). And the characters rarely blink. I know most of them are supposed to be cyborgs, but come on. It's almost taxing to watch these characters who look as if their eyes have been frozen open.
The characters show little emotion, particularly the heroine. At one point, when asked what it's like to swim in the ocean, she responds that she felt "cold, alone, and for a while, hope" (or something like that) and sounds as if the voice actress herself is some sort of automaton; there's absolutely no indication from the voice of the character that she feels any of these things. Yes, again, she's a cyborg, but she's supposed to have some human being left to her and dagnabbit, I wish the film had conveyed that. The quality of Major Motoko's voice doesn't help; it's at times bland or outright annoying.
And there are too many city scenes. I wouldn't mind if they were more interesting, but they just sort of seem to drag by. I know they're probably their to establish mood, but the kind of mood this film has, it can keep.
Lastly, the dialogue, apart from being just badly delivered, was often too expositional and philosophical sounding. It'd be nice if the voice actors were trained a little better and the dialogue was just a tad less wooden.
On the plus side, this film had some superb action scenes, especially in the scene with the tank on four legs that blasted away stone walls as if they were cardboard. It's in scenes like this that the film shows life. But there were too few of them. I think the film could have used more of these action shots, as the treatment of the non-action bits left a lot to be desired.
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