Ghostbusters is a 2016 comedy film directed by Paul Feig with the intention of rebooting the classic franchise that launched in 1984. I feel like with this review more than most, it's important to remember that
Ghostbusters is indeed just a film, because with the absurd online disdain for this particular film you'd be forgiven for thinking it was ground zero for the battle of our culture. Many have slated the
Ghostbusters reboot for months before its release for particularly poor trailers (which are among the most disliked videos on YouTube). The response to this hate hasn't been exactly calm either, with accusations of sexism being flung towards any who criticized
Ghostbusters. It's a strange reaction for the world to have to a comedy film about catching ghosts, and despite the fact I felt the need to mention it here as the elephant in the room surrounding the film's release, let's put all of that out of our minds for now and focus on the product that has been delivered to us.
Ghostbusters follows three scientists who believe in paranormal entities and set out to prove their existence. Abby (Melissa McCarthy), Erin (Kristen Wiig) and Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon) soon form a team to investigate ghosts, teaming up with subway worker Patty (Leslie Jones) and dimwitted secretary Kevin (Chris Hemworth) to save New York from a ghoulish fate. The story is simple enough and quite similar to the one audiences will remember from the 1984 original, but with enough changes to argue that it's not a complete remake. The four Ghostbusters are all pretty good in their roles. As someone who isn't a fan of Melissa McCarthy's usual over the top shtick, I was glad to see that she toned it down considerably for this film. On the contrary, McCarthy and Wiig play the more straight roles in the films as compared to the eccentric nature of McKinnon and Jones' characters. Out of the four Ghostbusters, McKinnon was a highlight for me, with her character and performance sometimes bordering being too wacky, but usually entertaining enough to not worry. While I was glad to see that they weren't all competing with each other to "out-funny" one another and worked well as a unit, I would say that McCarthy and Wiig's characters don't bring a whole lot of jokes to the table which is a shame. In fact, the introduction to these characters is perhaps one of the weakest aspects of the film. Think back to the introduction of Bill Murray's Venkman in the original film where he performs a test on a young male and female and constantly pretends the woman has the correct answers so he can see her again. It introduced both his personality and the sense of humour you could expect from the character immediately. One of the first jokes in the reboot upon meeting two new characters is a fart joke, which immediately made me contemplate whether or not I was in for a really rough two hours. What's worse is that the joke followed a fantastic introduction to the film that absolutely nailed the tone and blend of scary and funny, only for that to seemingly be lost. Thankfully it's not something that lasts for the entire film is it often finds it's footing, such as their first outing as Ghostbusters and any time Chris Hemsworth is on screen being the film's shining moments.
The film never manages to stay consistent in quality throughout though. One element contributing to this is the strange editing. The pacing seemed thrown on numerous scenes that didn't really allow the jokes or actions to properly breathe, and sometimes would even cut from a shot of one character alone to a shot of her with other characters. With director Feig announcing an extended cut on Blu-ray, it's hard to not wonder whether or not the editing will be much better there just because the film has more breathing room. Outside of the editing, though, the film is still bizarrely put together. For every fantastic scene there's often a scene full of poorly executed exposition where the characters will narrate to themselves what they are thinking. There's even a moment where a character sees someone walking onto the tracks of a subway and mumbles something to themselves along the lines of "He's going on the tracks! He can't do that! I better stop him", as if the film believes the audience couldn't figure it out. This inconsistency hits with the film's jokes too. Sometimes the film would deliver what it felt like Feig believed to be a big hitting joke, and it would fall flat, only for a side joke by some secondary character later to have me nearly in tears laughing. The action sequences with the ghosts would often be great, with a scene involving Kate McKinnon being a highlight, but then some of the biggest action in the third act was among the worst. Indeed, inconsistency is one of the biggest problems that haunts
Ghostbusters as it struggles to get full momentum going with the quality stumbling every so often, and isn't helped by occasional references to the original sometimes actually undermining the work Feig and his cast are doing to build a new story.
The action is also sometimes hindered by inconsistent CGI on the ghosts, with a lot of shots in the climax looking notably fake. But when the CGI works, I actually really enjoyed the designs of the ghosts here. The film uses stylized, neon appearances for them that really stand out, although I've seen some people complain that it makes the ghosts look too goofy, as if the most iconic foes of the original
Ghostbusters weren't the bright green Slimer and gigantic marshmallow Stay Puft. Speaking of villains, the actual antagonists behind the attacks were rarely a strong suit of the franchise, and not much is different here as the villain is ultimately the same archetypal character we've seen in countless films before, including Sony's own
The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The 3D for the film is rather interesting, as it uses the effect of the action bursting through the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen to give a more pop-out effect. It's a fun but cheesy concept that enhances the 3D and makes the film one of the best recent uses of the format. I also saw
Ghostbusters in IMAX but I wouldn't call it a necessity at all unless you're close to one anyway, but if you do decide to go you can look forward to the sound being fantastic during the ghost scenes. This reboot is definitely a different take than the original, which personally for me is a good thing because it's bringing a fresh take to the concept rather than trying to imitate the first too much. However, I imagine the
Ghostbusters banner could actually hurt this film a lot (as it already has with fans becoming insanely defensive), as it invites the audience to compare it to the original and I can imagine fans of the first will be saddened to find out that the bombastic tone of the film and the sense of humour is drastically different from the original, which played the events of the film extremely straight and dry.
In conclusion,
Ghostbusters is an entertaining and interesting reboot of the franchise that manages to bring its own style to the concept. The film often hits its stride when allowed to be its own thing, but often stumbles with keeping the quality consistent, and the on-the-nose callbacks to the original only draw more attention to the film's setbacks. However, it's by no means a bad film or a bastardization of the brand, as there is entertainment to be found here, and if you have a couple of hours to kill at the cinema or when it inevitably hits Netflix, there's worse ways to spend it. At the same time, though, the film isn't great enough to fully smash through the pre-existing criticisms, and with a logo at the beginning of the film for a Sony owned "Ghost Corps" (a subsidiary of the studio relating exclusively to the
Ghostbusters property it would seem), it doesn't exactly get me that excited at the prospect of the unstoppable wave of
Ghostbusters films coming our way. Hopefully any future installments can learn from the setbacks of this one and build upon the successes to give us a film more worthy of the original.
Ghostbusters - 6 / 10
