The original Ghostbusters was released in 1984 and has since grown quite the cult following, and rightly so. Adored by critics and audiences alike, the movie took a more comedic approach to the ghost genre than had been seen before, incorporating more humorous elements than there is to be found in movies like The Exorcist or Poltergeist. Mix that with revolutionary visual effects, excellent acting and the brilliant script by starts Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, the movie proved to be a massive success. The 1989 sequel, however, was not so well received universally, and proved far more divisive than the original. Since then, the Ghostbusters have been absent from the big screen. Until now. Under the direction of Paul Feig, we now have an all-new, all-female crew of Ghostbusters ready to answer the call. Before I give my thoughts, I have to make one thing perfectly clear: I am not a sexist. There has possibly never been a more divisive reception to a movie than the one this one received, with some praising the new direction, while others cried out that it was destroying their childhood nostalgia through an unnecessary reboot of the franchise. Many typically dismissed these critics and naysayers as being sexists, more upset that the movie was now being led by a group of women than anything else. OK, no. That is not the case. The cast of this movie are talented, with all four leads having proven themselves to be capable of good acting and comedy. Everything I am about to say is down to having seen the final product itself, not the new direction it has taken over the original. That said, this movie is an absolute disaster that you should not consider seeing. There are a few good things in here, but they are far outnumbered by the terrible creative decisions and faults on display.
Look, as I said above, the new cast are all incredibly talented people. Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig and Chris Hemsworth have all done great work in movies over the last couple of years, while Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones are perhaps better known for their excellent comedy work on Saturday Night Live. I had my doubts just like everyone else from the announcement of this project, but I thought that at least this cast would be able to do great work and deliver some memorable performances, even if everything else in the movie wasn't particularly great. However, there are only a few good performances to be found here. Kate McKinnon easily gives the best performance of the lead four as the scientist Holtzmann, committing to the quirky and slightly insane personality of the character. Chris Hemsworth also does a great job as handsome but idiotic receptionist Kevin, and his introduction is probably the funniest part of the movie to me. However, even this humour starts to grow old by the second scene he is in, as his stupidness rises to completely unrealistic levels. These scenes do more to make the audience cringe than chuckle. Every other character, on the other hand, acts as an individual stereotype. Melissa McCarthy is given nothing to do as the ghost fanatic, Kristen Wiig goes through a painfully predictable character arc as the skeptical scientist, and Leslie Jones is irritatingly upbeat and cringeworthy as she screams and shouts her way through the later scenes in the movie. That's not even mentioning the villain who's main personality trait is that he's a villain. He is given literally no backstory or motivations for his actions in the movie, and Neil Casey's performance is unforgivably bad. This character is a sad and pathetic excuse for the villain of the piece.
The movie is marketed as a comedy and Paul Feig has directed a few comedies which have been reviewed well in the past, such as Bridesmaids and Spy (both also starring Melissa McCarthy). However, the movie is incredibly immature with a great deal of it's humour, with the first proper joke of the movie resorting to toilet humour with plenty more examples thereafter, while the majority of the rest of the humour falls flat. However, the script does not only fail to be funny, but also to build realistic character dynamics throughout the movie. For example, at the beginning of the movie, Kristen Wiig is estranged from Melissa McCarthy, with the movie showing that they used to be partners and even wrote a book together, before they grew apart due to Kristen Wiig wanting to pursue a more serious and well-respected career, while McCarthy continued to hunt and study paranormal activity. They are drawn back together but McCarthy clearly shows a sense of having been betrayed and abandoned. However, one or two scenes later, they are acting like best friends again, as if the feud between them has never existed. Feig takes no time to rebuild the sense of trust, friendship and a mutual love of studying the paranormal before throwing them into a team together. This is only one example of the unrealistic dynamics and decisions in the script. However, despite failing to include potentially important and interesting character moments like these, the movie still suffers from feeling overly long and bloated. The pacing in the movie is terrible, and will make the 116-minute running time feel like considerably longer than it actually is.
Let's now turn away from the acting and writing of the movie to the more technical aspects, and in particular the visual effects. As I previously mentioned, the original Ghostbusters was renowned for it's effects works, using a mix of practical effects and CGI elements which were seen an incredible and revolutionary at the time of release. However, this movie relies heavily on computer-generated effects, yet somehow manages to make the ghosts and ghouls on display seen way less realistic. While both the original movie and it's sequels opted to have the ghosts take on a human form initially, perhaps with a slight artificial light coming off of them, thus making it much more frightening when they did change their form in order to scare the Ghostbusters and other people (just remember the opening ghost in the library sequence). However, in this movie, the filmmakers took the strange decision to have the ghosts surrounding by a neon light the entire time they were on screen, and had very little human features about them at all. It doesn't help as well that the majority of the spectres that the Ghostbusters face off against are not human ghosts, with the most notable ghosts on show here being a winged gargoyle demon, a parade of balloons, and the returning Slimer. It is impossible for the audience to become immersed in this world due to the ridiculous CGI, which begins to severely drop in quality towards the end of the movie with so many ghosts on screen at once. Many are not given the appropriate attention to detail that would be expected from a big-budget, summer blockbuster and it is very noticeable. However, credit where credit's due, the effects on the Ghostbusters' gadgets and weaponry is impressive and should be commended.
There isn't a great deal of fun to be had here, as you can tell so far. However, where audiences should have a good time with the movie is in the action sequences. Unfortunately, these are few and far between in the movie, with the Ghostbusters surprisingly not doing much ghostbusting besides one scene and the finale, but what I did see left me wishing they had included more. I just mentioned the gadgetry used by the team in this movie, and this contributes greatly to making these scenes feel fresh and different from what we've seen before. Rather than being restricted to the standard issue proton pack, the crew also have access to proton pistols, a proton shotgun, proton hand grenades and hints a whole load more weaponry to be seen in the future. At the very least, the movie embraces the silliness of the action sequences, and has the team flying through the air, fighting a fair variety of evil ghouls. Even if it may not hold up for the majority of the film's runtime, I'm thankful to Paul Feig for at least using modern effects and technology to incorporate a variety of spirits that we've never seen before and have far more intense (and thus enjoyable) action sequences that simply weren't possible in the original Ghostbusters movies.
However, there are other technical aspects which go into making a movie, and these are unfortunately just as bad as the CGI used in the finale. One particular aspect that I have to point out here is the editing. I would normally never pick on something so small and trivial that wouldn't normally be examined or criticised by the average filmgoer, but this is a special case. The editing of the movie is horrendous. On multiple occasions, characters will be shown to be standing quietly despite audio playing with them supposedly speaking. That's not to mention a whole host of obvious continuity errors, even surrounding crucial parts of the movie such as the costumes and the car. There's plenty of other elements such as cinematography, and these are handled well but are nothing particularly special. The set and costume design are also handled well, although they are also fairly stereotypical, containing all of the typical elements you might expect from a mad scientist's lab, a hotel set, a haunted house, and the Ghostbusters lab itself. Overall, there's nothing to be seen here that hasn't been seen before.
Look, since this movie chose to use the Ghostbusters name rather than become a completely new series also focusing on ghosts, there's no way to write this review without comparing it to the original movies in some degree, and in particular mentioning how it handles the call backs and references to these movies. In short, these parts of the movie are insulting and pathetic to the Ghostbusters legacy. All of the references in the movie are included as blatant pandering to fans of the original, a desperate attempt to encourage them to see this new movie based entirely on nostalgia for the old series. Not only this, but there are cameos galore here, with plenty of the major players from the original movie making an appearance in some shape or form. However, pretty much all of these are distracting and irritating, adding nothing to the movie. It doesn't help that it is clear that plenty of the original cast members did not want to be there, but were perhaps forced into it by the studios or some part of their contracts. It's particularly obvious that this was the case with one cast member who plays the role of a paranormal debunker. If you've seen the movie, you know who I'm talking about. Make no mistake, if you only want to see this movie for the references to the old movie, there's plenty to be seen here. Just be warned, they are not handled in a way that honours that movie, but rather make it unclear whether or not the filmmakers wanted this movie to be a completely separate entity from those original movies or if it wanted to be tied to them, perhaps initially pitched as a sequel set years after the events of the original. The movie is clearly haunted by the ghosts of it's past (sorry for the pun).
To sum up, this movie has far too many problems for even the most die-hard fans of the franchise to forgive. Admittedly, there are some good parts to the movies, including the inventive action set pieces and a few good characters who are the highlights of the cast. However, this is not nearly enough to save the movie considering the whole host of problems the movie is weighed down with. Terrible writing, a large amount of terribly handled technical elements, and plenty of underdeveloped and painfully written characters all play a part in bringing the movie down, not to mention it's unfortunate and often insulting ties to the original. Again, I am not hating on this movie because it is led by a female cast and it may be considered the fashionable thing to do. I am describing and telling you all of these issues because that is the job of a reviewer. I appreciate and respect that the filmmakers were trying a different approach to the idea of the Ghostbusters, but that does not mean I am not going to show why you should avoid seeing this unfortunately terrible movie.
Pros
Some fun action sequences
A couple of good characters...
Cons
But way more stereotypes and terrible characters
Unfunny and unrealistic writing
Horrendous cameos
Ridiculous CGI
Editing
Terrible pacing
Insults the legacy of the original movie
Rating: 2/10
Release Date: 11th July, 2016
Starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Chris Hemsworth, Cecily Strong, Andy Garcia, Neil Casey, and Charles Dance
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