Ghostbusters (2016) SPOILER Review

So, it's Tuesday, and I'm assuming that anyone who wanted to see the movie has seen it by now (and yet, Sony still thinks that $46 million is enough to say "YES! SEQUELS! SEEEEEQUELS!"), so today, I'm going to dive into a much needed discussion of spoilers. If you haven't seen the film and you don't want to be spoiled, check out my spoiler-free review from last week. This blog will be similar to my Money Monster review where I break down the film scene-by-scene and discuss certain aspects that I felt I was too vague on in my first review. This might end up sounding like a negative review, but just bear in mind I did overall enjoy the film; it has its funny moments, as well as a few elements that improve on the original, but essentially, it is the little things that did prevent it from being great, and that's what we're looking at today. So, with that said, let's take a look!

Ghosbusters (2016) Movie Review - Busting at its most adequate

(I know it's an international poster, but it's still easily the coolest poster the movie's had.)

I admit that I'm a tad embarrassed. When I witnessed the trailer for Ghostbusters back in March, I was admittedly impressed, which was so drastically different from the reaction from the rest of the internet that I made my first video trailer reaction acknowledging that differentiation (you know, back when I MADE videos). This flashy, eccentric, zany style was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to see from a modern day update on Ivan Reitman's 1984 classic. Now that I've seen the film.... I don't feel like I liked it as much as I should have. There were a lot of things that I really enjoyed about it, some genuinely funny moments, a few big standout stars, and some fun Ghostbusting action, but there are also a lot of moments in the film that drag the film, where the film stops in its tracks simply because it feels like it has to in order to recapture the magic of the first film, not fully understanding why it did what it did. What do I mean by that? Well, let's dive in!

The film's plot follows the original pretty similarly. It follows a scientist named Erin, played by Kristen Wiig, who's attempting to get her tenure, but finds that difficult when her previous partner, Abby, played by Melissa McCarthy, publishes a book illustrating her research on the supernatural. However, that investigation comes to light once more when they, along with an engineer known as Holtzmann, played by Kate McKinnon, and a subway associate named Patty, played by Leslie Jones, discover several ghosts appearing throughout the city and begin building several devices to capture the ghosts and send them back where they came from. What they discover, however, is that this is all part of a scheme devised by a ghost named Rowan to set ghosts free and run amok in what could only be described as an apocalypse of terror.

I think the majority of the problems I have with the film are contained within the first third. One problem in particular is that the majority of the comedy is just pointless talking jokes. Sometimes, it's just a chuckle-worthy nod towards the first film, but then other times, Abby and Erin start talking about how they love some steak house. What does that have to do with anything? In the first film, the characters were just being themselves, carrying the plot along the way they should, and what they said just happened to come out funny. Why does this one feel the need to talk about STEAKS when there's a paranormal catastrophe at hand? Another problem, though, is the amount of pointless techno-babble that gets spewed out whenever they're talking about the gadgets they work with. Granted, the first film had its share of techno-babble, as does just about every sci-fi flick, but in the first film, whatever they said was essential to the plot (such as Egon going over why you should never cross the proton packs' streams). Here, on top of the scientific jibber-jabber that would honestly make the writers of Star Trek sound PhD worthy, by the end of the film, I don't remember anything beyond the gadgets' primary functions. Quit wasting our time, movie!

But, as the film goes on, it does get a lot better. A lot of that pointless comedy gets reduced, and the plot starts picking up quite a bit, and it is essentially that Ghostbusters formula we're all familiar with; a dark apparition trying to take over the world with his ghostly minions. The chemistry between the four ladies is solid to say the least; seeing them work off of each other as they fight to save the city is pretty seamless, and none of their interactions ever feel forced in any way. Paul Feig could have gotten some of the worst comedic stars to go alongside his already compatible comedic past times, Wiig and McCarthy, but Jones, despite many being worried about her coming off as a black stereotype, plays her role as a member of the team and nothing more, and Kate McKinnon.... HOLY CRAP, SHE WAS HILARIOUSLY ECCENTRIC IN THIS! If the cosplay of this isn't all the rage at the next SDCC, I don't know what will be! (Well, maybe I do....) Even funnier than all of them, though, is Chris Hemsworth as their male receptionist; yeah, he's an idiot (which, yeah, as many people have mentioned, every guy in this is basically an idiot or an asshole in this... even Bill Murray in his obligatory cameo), but his delivery is so confident that it makes it even funnier when everyone knows he's taking a misstep.

What all of this essentially builds up to, though, is a big action set piece, which I'll take a nosedive here and say was my one and only problem with the first film; as much plot buildup as there was throughout, the final setpiece was very small and conservative, with the villain being beaten in one blow with very little action inbetween. This one does the exact opposite, creating this big, epic, CG action climax with the utilization of all the gadgets we were introduced to earlier, which, if that sounds too different from the first film to be your cup of tea, I could understand that. For me personally, though, it was just so much fun seeing all these crazy ghosts be zapped with all these crazy gadgets, and honestly, if you were to build upon the first film, this is how I think you would do it. Granted, the final blow towards the bad guy was a little weird, but it never reaches those "Michael Bay giving Devestator testicles" levels of weird; if anything, in hindsight, it's basically one of those cheap Hollywood jokes that keeps making it into big-budget comedies.

While we're on the subject of the action, though, I should probably talk about the CG effects. To put it simply, when they work, they can be fun to look at, and when they don't work, they stick out like a sore thumb. I'm a big believer that, when it comes to CGI in live-action movies, either less is more or.... more is more, if that makes any sense. Remember Harvey Two-Face from The Dark Knight? The effects on him were phenomenal in their detail because the rest of the film wasn't overloaded with too many other CG effects. Obviously, with this film having a big, epic CG battle at the end, there's gonna be a few effects that stick out, and when they do stick out, I'm not kidding when I say you can see the pixelation on the ghosts. It's embarrassing! The best effects in the film, however, do utilize practical effects, which work a lot better. On top of that female ghost we saw in the very first trailer (which, for those who don't know, is a real actress with CGI covering her), there's one part where Patty's getting chased by a manikin that's old fashioned, but still pretty funny to watch, just as a few examples. What does get pretty obnoxious after a while, though, are the 3D effects; the 3D is well-rendered, thanks to the same people who rendered James Cameron's Avatar, but there are way too many moments of things flying out of the screen. That bit you saw in the trailer where Jones slaps the ghost out of McCarthy has a bit where her "Patty" necklace is dangling past the border of the screen. REALLY?! Even the end credits throw so many distracting effects at us that I never managed to catch a single name listed. (P.S. Stay after the end credits.)

On the whole, this new Ghostbusters takes a lot of missteps with its comedy and its pacing in the first third, but once the plot starts kicking in, I can't help but have a blast with it (no pun intended). Does it deserve the hate? Probably not to the cynical levels that it reached, but in all fairness, a lot of the speculations were on the mark. There is a lot of pointless talking comedy and a few crappy effects, but once you look past that, there are a lot of laugh-out-loud moments along with some stellar action. Is it the Ghostbusters film we've all been waiting for? No, I think that film pretty much died out with the death of Harold Ramis, but considering what we could have gotten with any other comedic team (LOOKING AT YOU, SANDLER!), at the very least, Paul Feig and friends managed to replicate one element that Reitman and his team did with their classic film... They had fun, and that fun can transcend onto you if you let it. I would recommend it, albeit in a very lukewarm manner.

My rating: