This movie suffers from one thing only, poor writing. It gets better once Major meets Kuze and the secret it revealed, but prior to that it's boring and dull. The characters, Togusa, Ladriya, Ishikawa, and Saito lack barely to no depth. There's no point in having so many Section 9 characters if they'll only have 1 or 2 lines. The original film only had Aramaki, Major, Batou, Togusa, and Ishikawa. Also, Saito was just deus ex machina. Completely out of nowhere and saved the day.

The banter between the characters felt forced and cringy when we first met Togusa and the rest of Section 9. We didn't need to know the specifics of their characters, just who they are. Also, who decided that Aramaki would be the only one to speak Japanese in the whole city? That makes sense. Another thing was the civilian that got his mind erased and implanted with a false memory. I understand why they did it, but it felt disingenuous and useless to the story. The original film used it as part of their story while this film used it as a tacky call-back to the previous film. It served no purpose. The scene would have been fine on its own without the false memory. The actor was great.

The holograms were great, though. The city looked amazing. Everything was very aesthetically pleasing. Batou and his bassett hound was my favorite.

TL;DR - Ghost in the Shell is not a well written film. The beginning sucks, the end is better. I loved the dog.