"Ghostbusters (2016)" review

Who ya gonna call, indeed.





There really is no easy way to tackle this one. “Ghostbusters (2016)” is the type of bad movie that I absolutely dread sitting through every time I walk through theater doors with the intention of keeping a tight deadline in mind; thoroughly mediocre.

With all of the vitriol tossed at this film and the various parties associated with it, some of it deserving and some of it representing the worst of human culture, it would have been nice if Paul Feig’s take on the apparently classic 1984 supernatural comedy was a surprisingly strong and fresh experience despite the almost laughably stereotypical Hollywood conditions that it was born from.

Failing that however, I’d have settled for something loud and dumb but bold with noble intentions or even a train wreck of a production that consistently one ups itself in how mortifyingly mesmerizing it can be to watch unfold but it can’t even be that imaginative.

What we instead get in Sony’s retread of Ivan Reitman and the late Harold Ramis’ baby featuring the four titular apparition hunters fighting to keep New York safe now helmed by Mellissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, Kristen Wiig, and Leslie Jones is an almost assembly line production of the major beats of the first film with modern improv comedy peppered between set piece with several hits and misses to go around.

Comically, the first half of the film is far stronger than the second. While the writing itself leaves quite a bit to be desired, the chemistry of the cast carries the film forward almost effortlessly, but the actresses always managed to carry the humor forward in character.

Wiig’s character of Eric Gilbert has an unfortunate sense of isolation and longing for acceptance that comes into conflict with McCarthy’s more extroverted and determined Abby Yates with funny results but their friendship manages to have a rather touching core that grants the film a bit more of the warmth that it desperately needed. This extends to Jones’s Patty, that manages to tread the line just right between exaggeratedly head strong yet thoughtful and competent, as well as McKinnon’s wild Holtzmann, who outright steals every scene she’s in.

The main characters really work and even when the world of caricatures around them doesn’t work they always do their best to guide tings back front and center to try again.

Where “Ghostbuster (2016)” sadly fall apart however is in the territory that it most succeeds in, which is being a passable Paul Feig comedy. So many of the set up comedic interactions are clearly derived from a loose base from which the cast must improvise out, piecing together the best ideas and takes into what goes into the final production.

Your mileage may vary on how effective this ends up being but it’s a style of comedy that I personally despise as it more often than not results in good jokes getting beaten into the ground before they can even become memorable and make those flat moments drag on until you just feel like you’re sitting in purgatory.

The debatable nature of comedy styles aside, here, they don’t have a solid enough ratio to balance out the moments that just run too long. A comedy with an unbalanced successful humor is rough enough but the products ability to sell and represent the “Ghostbusters” concept is where things become most painful.

As commonly discussed regarding the original film, one of the things that made “Ghostbusters” work was the original production crew’s dedication to every aspect of the material that they were working with.

The cast had worked up a chemistry through prior outings with one another, the writers and director had done extensive research in the fields of paranormal metaphysics and the occult, and the entire film was shot using equipment and techniques of cinematography commonly used for horror films of the era which really helped to sell the subversion.

Watching this almost soulless hodgepodge of special effects, action sequences and bland broad comedy come together is like watching an international high class gourmet chef gentrify a Philly Cheese Steak based on a description of the sandwich’s components; it just can’t be done authentically unless you go in and learn a bit about the culture that turned it into what it is.

And there you essentially have it in a nutshell. “Ghostbusters (2016)” is a film constructed by a number of people both in front of the camera and behind it that can passably recreate the main components of the franchise superficially but just don’t know how to meld them together properly.

What comes of this lack of understanding is a mediocre comedy mildly entertains only slightly more than it does irritate, and a much more fascinating side of supernatural science that goes underdeveloped and boils down to creating toys to sell and generating the same tired, cliché, CGI riddled, standard “save the world from the 2 dimensional villain with no human stakes involved” blockbuster action.

It’s the exact same type of uninspired laziness that caused me to pivot halfway through my review of “Independence Day: Resurgence” upon realizing that just because I was pleasantly surprised by exposure to a pedestrian experience after marching into what I anticipated to be cinematic Armageddon, doesn’t change that the experience was just pedestrian.

That’s sad too because this cast deserved a far better “Ghostbusters” movie than the pitiful screenplay that they were sacked with.

At the same time however, irritating as it may be to see Sony ape and plug iconography for a future franchise regardless of failing to land a good first outing, the movie really isn’t worth even an eighth of the controversy that it has stirred, whether from the male bigots so insecure in their own strength that they need to see women institutionally weaker to reinforce their own pathetic egos or the business savvy fandom ready to cry death of the slow moving 30+ year old franchise based on a single bad movie that doesn’t come close to the cataclysms dropped upon movie theaters within the last 365 days alone.

Which is an apt summary of what it’s like to actually sit through a viewing of “Ghostbusters (2016);” Not pleasurable or excruciating, simply a minor irritation that you just keep wondering when will it end.

4 Ray Parker Jr. Royalty Checks out of 10