GHOSTBUSTERS (2016) - A Quickie Review

I never got around to seeing it in theaters, but now you can rent it, and so I did. So what's the verdict? Criminally underrated? Is my childhood still intact? Does having four women ruin EVERYTHING??
Well, let's cross the streams and dig in.

Spoiler Warning - self explanatory warning, I think. 

Let's cast aside, for a moment, the idiotic rants and outrage over casting this movie with women. Let's disregard the rampant disgusting behavior, misogyny and racism that cast a pall over this movie. Let's forget that remaking beloved classics is a tricky business, and just try to examine this movie as objectively as possible, and ask the question: Is it a good movie?

No. No, it's not.

That statement has nothing to do with the female cast - (I'm a big fan of three of the four women, but I've never really been into Melissa McCarthy - her comic sensibilities just don't do anything for me) - and everything to do with the movie they're in. It's lazy, sloppily written, tonally all over the place, poorly directed and exhibits many of the negative aspects that cause people to stereotypically bash remakes and sequels. Paul Feig's 'Ghostbusters' follows a lot of the same plot beats as the 1984 original, but "upgrades" the special effects. But new SFX is not enough of a reason to remake a movie, so I'm left wondering...why?

Aside from being sort of pointless, it also commits THE cardinal sin of movies...it's boring. At one point, I happened to notice that I was 42 minutes in before I laughed out loud (it was at Leslie Jones' Queens crack - and for someone who didn't like the movie, Leslie Jones was easily my favorite part, so all the repugnant hate that's been thrown her way is fucking ridiculous). A third of the movie passed me by without causing any sort of emotional reaction. That's not good. Part of it is that the story itself just didn't pull me in, but another, larger reason is that the jokes are just aren't funny. They're broad, silly, predictable, and kind of all over the place. Kate McKinnon is a hilarious woman, yet her performance seems like she just kept getting notes to "do it goofier!" Wiig has the capacity to be completely insane, but for the most part, she plays her character completely straight. In fact, she and McCarthy's characters are almost interchangeable.

The bottom line is they simply weren't given enough to do, and it often felt as though the story was relying on the viewers liking the actors instead of the characters. The script even manages to make Chris Hemsworth - a guy I think has real comic talent - kind of unlikeable. I get what they were trying to do - turn the pretty-but-dumb secretary trope on its head AND mix in a little of the Dana/love-interest-turned-villain, too, but it just doesn't work. Hemsworth doesn't play ditzy so much as he plays unbelievably stupid to the point of being annoying. And while turning him into a villain-via-possession is an interesting idea, any sense of danger he'd ostensibly give off is pretty well undermined by his dance number (yes, there's a dance number), and the villain's desire to create kooky looking ghosts rather than create any actual danger.

Things happen for little or no reason, as opposed to being driven by the plot. Sure, seeing Times Square reverted back to it's 70's incarnation seems cool, but what purpose does it serve? I mean, the main bad guy (because the movie has to have a human villain - for now, anyways, as the post-credits stinger references Zuul for a never-gonna-happen sequel) is hardly developed at all, and in the end, when he assumes a massive form, the stand-in for the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man, he is felled by, wait for it...a shot to the balls. High comedy, indeed.

And though Paul Feig, the director, isn't the one who is actually doing all the SFX/CGI rendering, it's his approval that these things need, and I can't imagine why he said "yes...this ultra-bright neon look is exactly what we want." In a way, it reminded me of George Lucas, and the Jabba the Hutt scenes added into the original Star Wars - CGI that is so obviously CGI that it takes me out of the movie-watching experience and makes me wonder...why?

The answer IS Paul Feig. It's Feig who partnered with Katie Dippold to write this script, Feig who approved the finished product, who shot the film, edited it and finally wrapped it up and said "this is done". The failure of this film isn't in the casting of women, or in the idea itself, it's in the half-assed execution of it. The failure is on Paul Feig, who mistook his idea for a Ghostbusters reboot for a good idea.


FINAL SCORE - 4/10