Ghostbusters (2016) Review

I'm not sure it's a poor script, but it is an uneven one. The pacing gets weird towards the end, and I have mixed feelings about the time spent on Rowan. I like his plot on paper, the idea of someone possibly using Ghostbusters tech for malicious purposes is a pretty cool concept, especially when you add in the idea of leylines to accomplish it, but Rowan himself is a cartoon character. So is everyone else in this movie, but he is just so over the top that you can't take the threat he makes seriously. I think if you were to just plop your villain down in the end of a movie today like they did with Gozer, mouthbreathing dweebs all over the internet would be crying foul over an underdeveloped bad guy, but unfortunately this doesn't really work either.

The reason I give it a pass despite this is because the cast is just so damned fun to watch, even after the battle at the end is over. And let's be fair, that's what made Ghostbusters so endearing to begin with, that Peter, Ray, Egon, Winston, Janine, Dana, and Louis were really great, funny characters that you wanted to watch, not for its take on Lovecraftian mumbo jumbo which is kind of hastily thrown together in the last 20 minutes or so.

Structurally, the film seems OK to me, and I don't even really have a problem with the villain. I'm just more bothered by the dialogue that, overall, seems flat, waves at the idea of "funny" without often being funny, and is not worthy of the cast.

Friend: Have you seen Ghostbusters yet?

Me: [playing dumb] Yeah, I saw it in 1984.

Friend: [gives lengthy explanation that this is a new Ghostbusters featuring an all-female cast.]

Me: Is there any nudity?

Friend: No.

Me: Then what is the point?

Shellhead wrote: Friend: Have you seen Ghostbusters yet?

Me: [playing dumb] Yeah, I saw it in 1984.

Friend: [gives lengthy explanation that this is a new Ghostbusters featuring an all-female cast.]

Me: Is there any nudity?

Friend: No.

Me: Then what is the point?

This pisses me off. Either you are joining in with the gamergate style attack that decries any female intrusion into male space, or you are just mucking around not really being sexist but aware of the controversy and poking it a bit. The danger with the latter approach is it encourages the haters and allows them to make their irrational attacks.

Shellhead wrote: Friend: Have you seen Ghostbusters yet?

Me: [playing dumb] Yeah, I saw it in 1984.

Friend: [gives lengthy explanation that this is a new Ghostbusters featuring an all-female cast.]

Me: Is there any nudity?

Friend: No.

Me: Then what is the point?

hurr hurr boobs

Just poking a bit. I'm tired of Hollywood remaking everything in sight. Sometimes the results are good or even great, but usually they fail to rise above the original or even general mediocrity. I have nothing specific against this new Ghostbusters, but since it represents nothing new and the advance buzz is just okay, I won't get around to watching it for a couple of years. And then I will enjoy (or not enjoy) the movie for what it is, as opposed to taking it in the context of the current overheated debate in our society.

It sounds like it will show up at our dollar theater soon.

As we had free cinema tickets and had to get out of the house for a few hours while we had no power, my wife and I saw Ghostbusters for the second time (plus our girls for their first time). The surprising thing for both of us was how much more we enjoyed it the second time, going from a 7 to an 8.5 or 9. I suspect that it is because plot matters less on subsequent viewings and characters more, and as I said after the first time I saw it the characters are the strongest part.

Both my daughters gave the diplomatic answer when I asked them who their favourite Ghostbuster was of "Holtzmann is the coolest but I liked Patty the most".

"The fat one"