Ghostbusters

•             PG-13
•             Comedy/Sci-Fi/Adventure
•             US Release:  July 15, 2016
•             Runtime:  1 hour 56 minutes
•             Directed by Paul Feig
•             Written by Paul Feig, Katie Dippold
•             Starring Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon, Chris Hemsworth
•             Grade:                        B-
•                                      It’s watchable!

 

Erin (Kristen Wiig) and Abby (Melissa McCarthy), longtime friends, find themselves at odds. While Abby continued her research into the paranormal, Erin tossed aside paranormal research in her attempts to go mainstream in the academic world. When fate brings them back together, they embark on an adventure that may give them the opportunity to justify their research. When New York City is threatened by dark supernatural forces, however, they realize they need to become something more than mere researchers.

I’ve never been particularly bothered by studios deciding to remake or reboot past films. There are very few films that I think are ‘untouchable,’ like Alien, The Godfather, or Raiders of the Lost Ark. My only reaction to hearing The Pink Panther, Robocop, or some other classic film is being remade is, “Oh. Well, I hope it’s good.” Likewise, casting choices usually don’t bother me much, either, unless it’s something blatantly off like an entire cast of white people in an ancient Egyptian setting (I’m looking at you, Gods of Egypt). A studio could produce a remake of Lethal Weapon with an Asian man and a black woman as the main leads, and all I would care about is if it is competently crafted and reasonably entertaining. In addition, the success or failure of the remake, in my opinion, changes nothing about my feelings for the original.

Thus, I wasn’t bothered to hear about the Ghostbusters reboot or the casting choices for the leads. I was just hoping it would be good. I won’t get too much into the vitriol that hit the internet when this film and its casting choices were revealed. I expected some negative commentary, obviously. Every time a remake is announced, there is inevitably a backlash by plenty of people who don’t want the original to be reproduced or feel that the remake is unnecessary. We’ve seen that a few years ago with Robocop, we’ve seen it in the past with Nightmare on Elm Street, True Grit, and others, and we’ll see it again in the future. I think it’s telling, however, that Ghostbusters has been far more viciously attacked than all the others. Flipping the gender switch on the Ghostbusters characters was a sure way to poke the anti-SJW, anti-feminism internet bear, and it has done its best to maul this film into oblivion.

The funny thing is that the film itself does more to harm its enjoyment than all the internet culture warriors combined.

The main leads are charismatic, charming, and have great chemistry with each other. Kate McKinnon is sometimes off in another realm with her quirkiness, but otherwise I enjoyed their efforts, especially Leslie Jones. I loved the irony of Chris Hemsworth as the thick-witted beefcake secretary for the Ghostbusters team, and Hemsworth was genuinely hilarious in this role. I’ll grant you, the secretary in the original film wasn’t dense, but how often in movies do we find some big-boobed, ditzy bombshell working as a secretary for a team of men? It’s rubbing our noses in the caricature, and I dig it. The special effects were also quite good, definitely an improvement over the original film (which was great for its time, and still holds up rather well today).

Unfortunately, the humor frequently misfires, the cameos by the original Ghostbusters cast are atrocious for the most part, and the story is simply uninspired. There were also a few characters that added nothing to the script and probably should have been cut from the film. The villain was fine, but not really all that impressive. I enjoyed the leads, as I mentioned, but in fairness they’ve done better work in past films. Leslie Jones had me laughing my butt off, but McCarthy, Wiig, and McKinnon only had me smiling from time to time.

Ghostbusters, basically, isn’t worthy of either praise or condemnation. It’s not a bad movie, it’s just a mildly entertaining film that won’t leave a major impression. There have been plenty of remakes worthy of hate (The Pink Panther, The Fog, Arthur, The Wicker Man), but Ghostbusters is nowhere near as bad as any of those. It’s like the Robocop remake released back in February, 2014: better than expected, but fails to recapture the magic of the original film.