`GHOST IN THE SHELL' A BIT CRACKED.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

LIKE ITS influential anime predecessor, ``Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence'' is about the finer contradictions of existence. And shooting at things.

Those coming to the Japanese cartoon series cold will detect unmistakable echoes of ``I, Robot,'' the ``Matrix'' movies and (for the most part, sadly) ``Resident Evil.'' But ``Shell 2,'' which like the 1995 ``Ghost in the Shell'' was directed by Mamoru Oshii and is very loosely based on Shirow Masamune's popular comic books, had its themes and motifs set up before most of those movies were made.

That does not excuse ``Shell 2's'' pretentiousness, nor the fact that, while often strikingly designed, it suffers from the tedious exposition and static image flow that is frustratingly typical of much Japanese animation. But you can't call it derivative. Indeed, anything as obsessively concerned with the true nature of consciousness as Oshii's work is must be appreciated as deeply, personally peculiar.

Mixing shimmering computer graphics (cityscapes, vehicles, techno-environments) with noirish hand-drawn characters, Oshii unravels a confusing, future world mystery in which individual life forces (the title ghosts) reside in various combinations of android and flesh-and-blood receptacles.

And then there are dolls, pure (supposedly) robots built for labor and, in the case of the nubile gynoids who are malfunctioning and killing their owners, providing pleasure.

While investigating the gynoid glitch, the detective team of armored cyborg Batou and family man Togusa uncover worlds within worlds of corporate deceit, manipulated realities and, well, things to shoot at. There is also a cute basset hound and a Chinese parade that is one of the most stunning sights I've ever seen in a theater.

These flourishes can't do much more, however, than provide momentary relief from the fatuous references to Descartes and Milton, or the dreary minutes of barely animated talking heads explaining, explaining, explaining the fundamentally inexplicable plot.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

GHOST IN THE SHELL 2: INNOCENCE - Two and one half stars

(PG-13: violence, language)

Director: Mamoru Oshii.

Running time: 1 hr. 40 min.

Playing: Selected theaters.

In a nutshell: Philosophical, sometimes dazzling, often static anime robo-mystery is, more than anything, pretentious. In Japanese with English subtitles.