REVIEW: Ghostbusters (2016)

The following is a review of Ghostbusters (2016) – Directed by Paul Feig.

A few months ago, I went back and rewatched the first two original Ghostbusters films and reviewed them both. I still loved the original film, but I was taken aback by how much I didn’t have fun rewatching the sequel. Now, I did all of this to prepare for the remake that came out this year. Unfortunately, I missed it when it was in theaters. Now, however, I’ve had the chance to see it on Blu-Ray and here’s my knee-jerk reaction: it’s not as bad as some have made it out to be.

Ghostbusters follows Dr. Erin Gilbert (played by Kristen Wiig) and Dr. Abby Yates (played by Melissa McCarthy) – two physicists that once wrote a book on paranormal phenomena. However, Erin and Abby no longer work together at the start of the film. Erin has since disowned the work they did together, and she thought the book was no longer available. Much to her surprise, though, someone brings it to her attention that the book is available online.

Erin fears that the book will cost her her job at Columbia University, so she meets with Abby, who has since teamed-up with an engineer – Dr. Jillian Holtzmann (played by Kate McKinnon). Holtzmann, Yates, and Gilbert soon become a team, and later an MTA worker – Patty Tolan (played by Leslie Jones) – who has seen a ghost in the subway of New York City joins them. They are the new ‘Ghostbusters.’

Look, I think there are a lot of things to like about this movie. Like, I genuinely like the new Ghostbusters team. While I didn’t hate the trailers, I didn’t love them either — the trailers didn’t win me over to the side of believing this would work. But I actually think that all four actresses do a good job here. Leslie Jones is super funny here, I think Kate McKinnon’s character was fun to watch (McKinnon is an SNL favorite of mine, even though I’m not sure she was in the same movie as everyone else here), and I liked both Wiig and McCarthy, even though I don’t think the film always gets enough out of them. It’s a solid cast.

I also think it was a brilliant move to make Chris Hemsworth’s character a male version of the old dumb blonde stereotype (even though the secretary in the original Ghostbusters film wasn’t that type of character). Hemsworth was the standout performer in 2015’s Vacation remake, and I think he’s even better here — he’s laugh-out-loud funny and almost runs away with the movie.

I enjoyed quite a bit of the film, but it’s nowhere near as effective as the original in large part because of the jokes. While there are quite a few effective gags or jokes, too many jokes fall flat here — some even embarrassingly so. Disappointingly, the character cameos aren’t all that great, to say the least. Actually, I think those star cameos will only hurt the film when you rewatch it. The original Ghostbusters cast deserved way better than what they’re given to work with — it’s quite frustrating really.

So yeah, I’m not going to act like there aren’t any problems here — there absolutely are. The cameos really don’t work, way too many jokes fall flat with an awkward thud, I thought the CGI was overused and ineffective, I wasn’t wild about the action sequences, and most of the scenes that look bad in the trailers remain quite bad in the final product. On top of that, it’s also just way too long.

But, look, despite what you may have heard, the new Ghostbusters film is not awful. It falls somewhere between passable but unmemorable and inadequate but not an outright disaster. It’s not particularly good or awful. It’s not the catastrophe some people wanted it to be, but it isn’t the film to breathe new life into the franchise. It’s just kind of mediocre with some outstanding bits here and there.

5.5 out of 10

– Jeffrey Rex