I went to watch it at the IMAX in London on March 31 and I agree, I found the LA version to be very entertaining enjoyable and is by no means a /bad/ movie.
Yes they went for a more simple story, but visiually it was stunning and the action scenes were very well done.
It did dip in the middle, and I would have liked to have seen a little more focus on other members of Section 9. That said, the way this played out made me feel they were just setting the ground works and a follow up (laughing man would be easy to adapt) where said members would get more sceeen time.
Key Points
The Geisha action scene was sexy AF
ScarJo was
absolutely fine as Motoko
Visuals were wonderful
Probably did the Blade runner
thing better then what was shown in the new blade runner teaser (?)
Kinda of a shame the rubbish collector wasn't using 'HV bullets' as that scene is more compelling in the anime as I like how the recoil is pushing him back, it would have been cool to have the Live Action Batou say the "the breech and the barrel really screwed up. That's what happens when you use HV bullets in one of these things."
To that end I do think they nailed the casing for Batou
7.5 / 10
I completely agree with you. +1 
