So it took a week or so after the premiere, but I got out last night to see the new Ghostbusters movie. I cannot understand why anyone would have found any substantial cause to troll this movie and remain at a loss about the cultural kerfuffles surrounding it and the generally poor reviews it’s received. Maybe it’s resistance to the idea of rebooting a beloved film from our childhoods, maybe it’s rebooting a formerly all-male team to an all-female team, maybe it’s expectations being too high.
We’re well past the time that the idea of women as scientists, entrepreneurs, adventurers, heroes, or villains should be particularly odd to anyone. I did have a bit of a problem with the principally female cast, though: despite makeup and costuming trying to make Kristen Wiig seem frumpy and geeky, and Kate McKinnon going over the top with the “weird manic girl” schtick, both remained distractingly attractive. As comedians executing jokes in what is basically a silly movie, they do a fine job working through some clever and some hackneyed jokes.
Ghostbusters doesn’t get bogged down in the usual routine of a Saturday Night Live movie, beating a joke to death long after it stopped being funny (e.g., Wayne’s World). If anything, there are traces of jokes and scenes cut by an activist editor from the final version — which is a good thing, because it mostly keeps the movie flowing forward enjoyably, and the jokes leave the audience wanting more. My only complaint about this tailoring is that the seams show once in a while.
As for the cast, they’re all quite good. Indeed, they are the principal reason the reboot works. Leslie Jones steals the show, and that’s saying something when she’s paired up with charismatic co-stars like these. Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig play characters that they’ve played before; Ms. Wiig’s character in particular strikes the same emotional notes as the character she originated in Bridesmaids.
There were fewer standout snappy lines; Ms. Wiig is more of a Jerry Seinfeld at the center of wackiness rather than a punchline-delivering Bill Murray (that job gets split between Ms. Jones and Ms. McCarthy). That’s just fine — the writers and actors here had the confidence to let the characters form their own dynamics with each other and that worked just fine.
In other respects, though, the callbacks to the original movie were distracting and even forced: the script is, or at least could have been, strong enough to carry the film without them. I’m a bit wistful that the recurring cameos of cast members from the 1984 movie couldn’t have been more subtle, as well, because the script and the cast were entirely capable of standing up all on their own.
Computer graphics have come a long way since 1984, and once or twice the ghosts were scary enough to make me jump even though I knew the scare was coming. There were more than enough laugh-out-loud moments to be worth the price of admission. It’s a good but not great movie; while there are some flaws, it achieves everything it sets out to do — first and foremost, Ghostbusters aims to entertain its audience, and it does that very well.
Image by Thoth, God of Knowledge 
I enjoyed it too. Plenty of yucks. Not profound or anything but a good solid humorous movie. Also Liam Hemsworth is so ridiculously physically attractive that it almost causes physical pain.Report
Is it better than the original? I found the original to be distinctly alright.Report
How could it possibly be better than the original movie? The original had real comedians.Report
Maybe. I couldn’t tell, owing to the lack of jokes.Report
The original had one real film comedian and two real sketch comedians. That doesn’t work out to a recommendation.Report
There was almost another, if they’d been able to swing getting Paul Reubens to play Gozer.Report
Yeah, me too. I thought the funniest scene was the first one, where Bill Murray is acting like a complete charlatan. Making the ghosts real led to more special effects and less humor.Report
Yeah, I feel like there was a lot of potential in the scam story that was just ruined by the ghosts actually existing. (and their tools being effective)Report
I saw the original in theaters. It had an extraordinary effect on me. I wanted to hate it, but I couldn’t. It was so crude and dumb, and yet still funny. For instance, Bill Murray’s line “Yes, this man has no dick!”
The remake recreated that sort of feeling quite well. A feeling of “Oh lord, did you really?” while laughing.
I don’t think a remake will ever match an original for someone who has lived through both, but that’s a subjective judgement. It was certainly worth seeing, and fun.
I think the more highbrow critics who have suggested that “feminism can do better than this”, for instance, Alyssa Rosenberg, are echoing my own reaction to Ghostbusters (the original) and not just the current reboot. They didn’t make the film for feminism. They made it for laughs.
I laughed.Report
So it was just for laughs that this was made with an all female cast?Report
[Chris Hemsworth cries into his beer]Report
No. That was done to make money. That’s still okay, right?Report
I’m not so sure it is.
Is it okay to pretend to kidnap babies on camera to make money off of it? (that got people in worlds of trouble).
Perhaps this is ethics not morals.Report
Seeing as it’s a comedy, that seems likely. Also money, like Kazzy says.Report
For instance, Bill Murray’s line “Yes, this man has no dick!”
I think of that every time I see a computer described as “diskless”.Report
I only have but so many “hey honey, let’s go see a movie in the theater”s in me in any given year and this movie has somehow magically transmuted from “remake of 80’s comedy” to “Important Event That It Says Something About You If You Don’t See It And It Doesn’t Say That About You If You Do” and that’s a lot of overhead for a comedy.Report
Also, make sure you watch it The Right Way.Report
That’s because you’re a sexist BernieBro.Report
I thought Jones, Wiig and McKinnon were funny, McCarthy was typically over the top (and therefore less funny), and some of the Hemsworth interactions were hilarious. It had some good gags, it was thoroughly stupid in the way that blockbuster comedies almost have to be (the last 20 minutes made no sense whatsoever, but who cares, right?), and entertaining enough that I didn’t feel terrible about spending money to see it.Report
And that’s a whole hell of a lot better than I thought it was going to turn out.
… was McCarthy really possessed on set? [ya, joking.]Report