Ghostbusters - directed by Paul Feig
Starring: Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Chris Hemsworth, Sigourney Weaver, Charles Dance, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Elizabeth Perkins, Andy Garcia, Michael Kenneth Williams, Annie Potts, Ernie Hudson, Matt Walsh, Joel Murray, Cecily Strong, Zach Woods
Screenplay: Katie Dippold & Paul Feig
Okay, obviously there has been a fair amount of controversy surrounding this movie.
From the second that the cast was announced there was a barrage of..... well- whining.
I say whining because there isn't a lot that you can say about a movie until you've seen it and comments about its quality really do amount to uninformed moaning.
I'd be the first to admit that the trailers released to date didn't fill me with hope but then neither did the trailers for "Real Steel", "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot", "Bridge of Spies" and "Mad Max: Fury Road" and without exception I liked them a lot.
It always pays to give a movie a proper day in court.
For "Ghostbusters" - Paul Feig's re-imagining of Ivan Reitman's 1984 comedy classic - that day in court was today.
This is a movie that is hard to categorise as regards where it fits in the franchise.
Like "Mad Max: Fury Road" it could be called a re-boot but is just as worthy of being dubbed a re-imagining, a re-make or a sequel.
Characters from the previous two movies are not mentioned but structurally it shares a lot with Reitman's original and even borrows some plot elements from the 1989 sequel.
The opening shot is familiar - an old building set amidst modern New York City high-rises and apartments.
A tour group is being taken through an allegedly haunted house and just as the guide is revealed to have faked a few weird events a very real paranormal one happens.
Cut right to Kristen Wiig's Erin Gilbert practicing giving a physics lecture at a University she wishes to gain tenure at.
A visitor in the form of Ed Begley Jr reminds her of a past she wants to cover up which leads her to reacquaint herself with old friend Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy) who is working in paranormal research with partner Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon)
It mirrors the 1984 film quite closely in the way that it introduces the leads and the kind of ghostly encounters that they will have on their way to deciding to start a business called Ghostbusters.
There is even a new receptionist.
This time we have not a large glasses wearing Annie Potts but a very buff Chris Hemsworth bearing large (but lens-less) glasses.
Much humour is derived from Wiig's instant attraction to him. It is the kind of nervous-awkward schtick that Wiig is without equal at.
Hemsworth's character starts out as a plus but rapidly comes off as a sort of 'just in case' character.
'Better have a male in there to keep the male viewers happy' seems to be the thinking but his presence became as necessary as training wheels on a bike that is already racing along happily on its own two wheels.
Staying so firmly in line with the original film could have backfired and regardless will no doubt cause further disdain from those who have already decided to hate the film but there are quite a few laughs here.
One would hope so with the likes of Wiig, McCarthy and Feig involved and they are responsible for a fair few chuckles.
But it was Kate McKinnon who I found the most effective.
I am not familiar with her not having seen any recent SNL and since much of her work of late has been voicing animated characters she is effectively completely new to me.
But I am now a fan.
She plays Holtzmann as an offbeat but likeable brainiac.
That is where the similarity to the late, great Harold Ramis' Egon Spengler ends.
Holtzmann is reckless and amuses herself with a sense of humour and vivaciousness that Egon would find completely alien.
Holtzmann is a great character and McKinnon steals scene after scene.
Not to say that the others are slacking off.
Wiig, McCarthy and Jones all play funny characters very well.
I like the crew that they have assembled here and found myself enjoying the hell out of this film.
The effective laughs that are delivered in the first forty five minutes are unfortunately not expanded on to the degree that I had hoped in the final hour.
The laughs slow up when the special effects kick in.
The effects are every bit as good as you would expect from a modern big budget film but whereas the whizzbang moments in the original film served to further the comedy here the special effects are largely an end to themselves.
The spectacular finale arrives rather suddenly and ends almost in kind.
The movie seems to have trouble mixing the action beats with the comedy so elects instead to take an either-or approach that is disappointing.
On occasion it finds more success - there is a pretty good mixing of laughs and effects in the rock concert scene where Jones ends up with a ghost perched on her head but most of the comedy potential was destroyed by the pre-release trailer that gives pretty much the whole sequence away.
As disappointing as the dearth of laughs in the second half is it is not all bad news.
There is a nice level of inventiveness shown with the gadgets and some of the ghosts.
While none are as iconic as the Staypuft Marshmallow Man or the stop motion demon dogs there are some nice spooks on show here.
The cast are also highly watchable.
Whatever issues people have with this film I would imagine that the cast won't be one of them.
They may get the blame from people who have already decided to hate the film but for me they are one of its strengths.
They are none of them Bill Murray, Harold Ramis or Dan Aykroyd nor are they trying to be.
These are entirely new characters and very strong ones.
I have made comparisons with the original film a lot here and it wasn't my intention.
Going up against a much loved classic and one of the funniest films ever made is tough but there are so many nods to the 1984 film that one is constantly reminded of it.
There are cameos from Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts and Sigourney Weaver and surprisingly Murray's is the most substantial.
Odd for a man who was frequently sited as the obstacle in getting a third film with the original actors made.
There are also a lot of lines, logos and even locations referenced, uttered or shown.
Ultimately "Ghostbusters" for me is a good film with much to like.
I don't think it is the smack out of the park that Sony are looking for but it has a decent number of laughs and some nicely executed action scenes.
Definitely stay for the end credits sequence too.
Not the awful Chris Hemsworth dancing stuff over the credits - I mean the extra scene after the credits.
It has something for fans of the original film and points to a sequel.
Really this film is only short of a few more laughs and it would be one of the funniest releases of the year.
Honestly I laughed more at "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates" but I can't say that I enjoyed "Ghostbusters" less than that film.
Sometimes a comedy film is about more than the humour and if this 'remake' isn't as perfect with the balance as the original it is pretty much close enough.
RATING: 72 / 100
CONCLUSION: A great cast and some nice effects make this a fun, often funny film. If you give it a chance you'll have a good time with it.
Screenplay: Katie Dippold & Paul Feig
Music Score by: Theodore Shapiro
Cinematography: Robert D. Yeoman
Edited by: Melissa Bretherton & Brent White
Running Time: 116 minutes
Language: English
Rated: PG - mild language
Cinematography: Robert D. Yeoman
Edited by: Melissa Bretherton & Brent White
Running Time: 116 minutes
Language: English
Rated: PG - mild language
From the second that the cast was announced there was a barrage of..... well- whining.
I say whining because there isn't a lot that you can say about a movie until you've seen it and comments about its quality really do amount to uninformed moaning.
I'd be the first to admit that the trailers released to date didn't fill me with hope but then neither did the trailers for "Real Steel", "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot", "Bridge of Spies" and "Mad Max: Fury Road" and without exception I liked them a lot.
It always pays to give a movie a proper day in court.
For "Ghostbusters" - Paul Feig's re-imagining of Ivan Reitman's 1984 comedy classic - that day in court was today.
This is a movie that is hard to categorise as regards where it fits in the franchise.
Like "Mad Max: Fury Road" it could be called a re-boot but is just as worthy of being dubbed a re-imagining, a re-make or a sequel.
Characters from the previous two movies are not mentioned but structurally it shares a lot with Reitman's original and even borrows some plot elements from the 1989 sequel.
The opening shot is familiar - an old building set amidst modern New York City high-rises and apartments.
A tour group is being taken through an allegedly haunted house and just as the guide is revealed to have faked a few weird events a very real paranormal one happens.
Cut right to Kristen Wiig's Erin Gilbert practicing giving a physics lecture at a University she wishes to gain tenure at.
A visitor in the form of Ed Begley Jr reminds her of a past she wants to cover up which leads her to reacquaint herself with old friend Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy) who is working in paranormal research with partner Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon)
It mirrors the 1984 film quite closely in the way that it introduces the leads and the kind of ghostly encounters that they will have on their way to deciding to start a business called Ghostbusters.
There is even a new receptionist.
This time we have not a large glasses wearing Annie Potts but a very buff Chris Hemsworth bearing large (but lens-less) glasses.
Much humour is derived from Wiig's instant attraction to him. It is the kind of nervous-awkward schtick that Wiig is without equal at.
Hemsworth's character starts out as a plus but rapidly comes off as a sort of 'just in case' character.
'Better have a male in there to keep the male viewers happy' seems to be the thinking but his presence became as necessary as training wheels on a bike that is already racing along happily on its own two wheels.
 |
| The cast is one of the movie's strengths |
One would hope so with the likes of Wiig, McCarthy and Feig involved and they are responsible for a fair few chuckles.
But it was Kate McKinnon who I found the most effective.
I am not familiar with her not having seen any recent SNL and since much of her work of late has been voicing animated characters she is effectively completely new to me.
But I am now a fan.
She plays Holtzmann as an offbeat but likeable brainiac.
That is where the similarity to the late, great Harold Ramis' Egon Spengler ends.
Holtzmann is reckless and amuses herself with a sense of humour and vivaciousness that Egon would find completely alien.
Holtzmann is a great character and McKinnon steals scene after scene.
Not to say that the others are slacking off.
Wiig, McCarthy and Jones all play funny characters very well.
I like the crew that they have assembled here and found myself enjoying the hell out of this film.
 |
| Kristen Wiig, Chris Hemsworth, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones |
The laughs slow up when the special effects kick in.
The effects are every bit as good as you would expect from a modern big budget film but whereas the whizzbang moments in the original film served to further the comedy here the special effects are largely an end to themselves.
The spectacular finale arrives rather suddenly and ends almost in kind.
The movie seems to have trouble mixing the action beats with the comedy so elects instead to take an either-or approach that is disappointing.
On occasion it finds more success - there is a pretty good mixing of laughs and effects in the rock concert scene where Jones ends up with a ghost perched on her head but most of the comedy potential was destroyed by the pre-release trailer that gives pretty much the whole sequence away.
As disappointing as the dearth of laughs in the second half is it is not all bad news.
There is a nice level of inventiveness shown with the gadgets and some of the ghosts.
While none are as iconic as the Staypuft Marshmallow Man or the stop motion demon dogs there are some nice spooks on show here.
The cast are also highly watchable.
Whatever issues people have with this film I would imagine that the cast won't be one of them.
They may get the blame from people who have already decided to hate the film but for me they are one of its strengths.
They are none of them Bill Murray, Harold Ramis or Dan Aykroyd nor are they trying to be.
These are entirely new characters and very strong ones.
I have made comparisons with the original film a lot here and it wasn't my intention.
Going up against a much loved classic and one of the funniest films ever made is tough but there are so many nods to the 1984 film that one is constantly reminded of it.
There are cameos from Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts and Sigourney Weaver and surprisingly Murray's is the most substantial.
Odd for a man who was frequently sited as the obstacle in getting a third film with the original actors made.
There are also a lot of lines, logos and even locations referenced, uttered or shown.
 |
| The visual effects are often very inventive and even turn Wiig into a pretty kickass action heroine |
I don't think it is the smack out of the park that Sony are looking for but it has a decent number of laughs and some nicely executed action scenes.
Definitely stay for the end credits sequence too.
Not the awful Chris Hemsworth dancing stuff over the credits - I mean the extra scene after the credits.
It has something for fans of the original film and points to a sequel.
Really this film is only short of a few more laughs and it would be one of the funniest releases of the year.
Honestly I laughed more at "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates" but I can't say that I enjoyed "Ghostbusters" less than that film.
Sometimes a comedy film is about more than the humour and if this 'remake' isn't as perfect with the balance as the original it is pretty much close enough.
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