Okay, so this is hardly a new film. But, despite the fact that I do love going to the cinema, I don’t see every film that comes out and the Ghostbusters reboot is one that slipped through my fingers, despite the fact that I was somewhat curious about it. So I’m catching up with this one on the movie channels…
When they first started talking about a new Ghostbusters movie, which was strongly suggested to be a sequel, I felt that the idea was quite a strong one. There’s quite a lot of scope in the concept of humans using technology to fight the supernatural and the fact that the Ghostbusters in the original movie are clearly formed as a company lent itself extremely well to a continuation with little or no participation from the original team – the new group could be readily explained away as a franchise in another city or as new employees of the company after the originals have retired or otherwise moved on. Ultimately, for various reasons, the sequel became a full reboot, which I felt was a shame, but there you go.
Before we go any further, let’s address the elephant in the room. When the movie was first announced as having an all-female line-up for the Ghostbusters, there was a lot of backlash to the idea. I’m just going to get this out of the way right now, and I feel that it’s hardly a good reflection on certain aspects of the world in general than I even have to say this – while I have a number of issues with this movie, that isn’t one of them. Okay? Good…
For me, the movie was an acceptable way of passing a couple of hours. Yes, that is basically a textbook example of damning with faint praise, and I make no apologies for that, as that’s about all I can really muster for the film. The plot is pretty formulaic, although, to be fair, it does at least take considerable steps to avoid being purely a retread of the original. The script has some genuinely amusing moments, but drops into either random squabbling or toilet humour rather too often. The special effects are generally pretty good, although, as with many modern blockbusters, it does devolve into something of a CGI effect-fest by the end of the movie. This is not necessarily a bad thing, of course, but sometimes the less-is-more approach can pay dividends and this may well have been one of the movies where it could have been the better option.
The cast are generally likeable in their roles, but those roles are generally a bit underwritten and personalities overlap a little more than is necessarily helpful. Melissa McCarthy’s Abby and Leslie Jones’ Patty both fall firmly into the “confrontational” category, an area that Kristen Wiig’s Erin also flirts with occasionally. The result is that Kate McKinnon’s Holtz, who thoroughly embraces the “sardonic mad scientist” tropes, is really the only one of the group who truly stands out. That being said, the chemistry between the four leads is good, although given that Wiig, McKinnon and Jones have all worked together on Saturday Night Live, a show that McCarthy has regularly hosted, this shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. The movie’s villain receives almost no characterisation beyond “creepy apocalypse-seeking janitor guy”, making little enough impact that, despite having only seen the movie yesterday, I still had to look up the name of the character (Rowan North, if anybody cares). On the positive side, Neil Casey, another SNL alumni, this time from the writing room, does do very good creepy, to the extent that it’s a genuine shame that he doesn’t get a bit more time to shine. It doesn’t say a great deal for the movie that the only really memorable character is Chris Hemsworth’s spectacularly dim receptionist Kevin. Hemsworth, who has clearly been reading up on the art of scene stealing, is having a whale of a time in the role and, even if he’s only in the background of a shot, is usually worth keeping half an eye on.
A big issue when reviewing a reboot or sequel is the extent to which you should think about the original when passing judgement. Personally, I’m of the opinion that, as much as possible, movies should be allowed to stand on their own two feet. However, some films don’t make that easy. This was something that I found with Jurassic World a couple of years back. While I found the film to be very enjoyable, there were moments when I really started to feel that they were overdoing the links to the original movie. Ultimately, I was able to let it slide, mainly because it was a sequel, it was set in much the same geographical location and so forth, so there were some workable rationales for these things showing up. Ghostbusters, however, takes it to a whole new level, with far less justification, given that the film is unquestionably a reboot rather than a sequel, and it begins to distract from the film itself. A moderate degree of this is acceptable, of course, as reboots generally do have to pay at least lip service to their forebears, so it’s not too bad that, for example, ECTO-1, the team’s main mode of transport, looks very similar to the original, as do the proton packs used as the team’s primary weaponry. The biggest issue with this movie is the cameos. Seriously, pretty much the the only main cast member from the original who doesn’t appear in this movie in some capacity is Rick Moranis, and he effectively retired from acting two decades ago. And that includes the sadly no-longer-with-us Harold Ramis (he appears as a bust in the university at the beginning, if you must know). Everybody else shows up somewhere as a new character and, after the first couple, it becomes distracting because, on some level, you start to wonder when the next one’s going to appear. And then they do and you’re taken out of the movie again because, oh look, it’s Ernie Hudson from the original. I’m generally very good at losing myself in a movie and this managed to dislodge me a couple of times. A key part of the original’s success was its rather laid-back charm and, sadly, that’s something that this movie lacks.
In the end, while there are some things to like about the movie, on a number of levels, it fails quite badly. Ghostbusters does have potential as a franchise but, honestly, this isn’t the best way to go about it and, unfortunately, the relative failure of the movie, which, even once home media sales are factored in, is unlikely to break even, has probably put paid to any immediate plans to revisit the idea. Which is a bit of a shame…
Humph's Thoughts 