I watched the movie, it was actually my the first GitS thing I've seen. The general feeling I got is that it was just another generic American action movie. The plot was predictable and unnecessarily "deep". There was even the standard "humanity will strive on, teamwork is important" moral at the end.
After watching it, I started reading the manga. The feeling is completely different - the setting is more light-hearted, the characters crack jokes all the time, etc. The movie feels like yet another action sci-fun movie, but with cyberpunk mixed in. The only thing it has in common with Ghost in the Shell is characters and the title. Everything else is cyberpunk in general, but being cyberpunk doesn't automatically make something part of GitS.