Previously posted on SupportPhantom.com.
When the
first details about the new Ghostbusters
movie started coming out I was not excited.
Aside
from Freaks and Geeks
I was not a fan of any of Paul Feig’s work. Without getting too
deep into it because that’s not what I’m here for, I found him to
be hacky.
The
casting of the four main characters seemed like a stunt to me –
banking on the current socio-political environment to get attention
and bolster ticket sales with guaranteed support from certain easily
led portions of the population. I liked Kristen Wiig, hadn’t
enjoyed anything I’d seen from Melissa McCarthy, and was not
familiar with Kate McKinnon or Leslie Jones. I didn’t have anything
against
the casting other than feeling like it was a stunt. But just because
something is a stunt doesn’t mean it can’t still be good.
For the
record, I think both sides of the Ghostbusters
2016 debate are stocked with assholes. People that are overly excited
about an all-female cast and feel that somehow that is an automatic
virtue are annoying. People that are mad about the cast and for that
reason alone are condemning the movie are stupid. I was in the
middle.
It
didn’t hurt that the new Ghostbusters
was bringing a slew of merchandise along with it. There’s nothing
like a little good old-fashioned capitalism to get me excited about
something.
I
managed my expectations, but was excited to see the movie, if only to
find out if it was successful or garbage and report it to you folks.
I bought tickets for the whole family and we went to the first local
showing at 7 PM on July 14th.
The
experience ended up being enhanced in ways I never expected. When we
arrived at the theater, the Atlanta
Ghostbusters
were there with their Ecto vehicle (I don’t know the numeric
designation). My son flipped out. Just because of the stuff I do, he
has seen a lot of cool stuff in his life, but seeing a bunch of
Ghostbusters standing beside a lit-up Ecto was a huge deal. They were
incredibly nice and posed for pictures with everyone there. They were
in our theater, as well, so it was really cool watching the new movie
with people dressed up as Ghostbusters just a few rows in front of
us!
There
were two other surprises once we got inside. First, each of us got a
very nice enamel pin when we handed our tickets over. I can’t
remember the last time I got a freebie of any kind for an opening
night movie, and I tend to go on opening nights. Second, the missus
bought me a drink at the bar called a Ghostbuster. It was green and
delicious and came with a free shot glass from Dan Aykroyd’s
Crystal Skull vodka.
So
it was with no small amount of excitement that we sat down to watch
this movie. My expectations were still fairly low, but I had
certainly been treated to some neat stuff going in.
Here
are my spoiler-free thoughts:
The
movie is so much fun. The best thing that you can do for yourself if
you’re not a stuck-up asshole that’s refusing to see it is to put
the original movies out of your head. I know that’s a tall order
considering the fact that this is a reboot or remake or whatever.
Actually, I’m thinking of it as a reinterpretation. This
Ghostbusters
presents a different world, new characters, and even different rules
for how ghosts work. Reset your brain, sit back, and go along for the
ride. Don’t sit there having thoughts like, “But that’s not how
that worked in the old ones”. No, it isn’t. But it doesn’t
matter because this is the new movie and everything that’s
different about it is what’s best. It only falters when it relies
too heavily on what has come before.
For
the parents out there, I was shocked
at the restraint shown as far as adult content went. There are three
instances of things that I considered inappropriate, and two of those
were things you’ve seen in any Marvel movie. The third is something
your kids aren’t going to pick up on, anyway. So massive kudos to
Paul Feig and crew for making something that kids can actually see
and that parents can (mostly) feel comfortable sharing with them. I
wish Michael Bay – or anyone making tentpole popcorn flicks –
would follow this example.
The
cast is fantastic. Better than fantastic. Each of them stepped up and
created wonderful, entertaining new characters. These aren’t female
versions of Egon, Ray, Peter, and Winston. At all. They aren’t
echoing the past. They can’t even really be pegged as types. Each
of the main four has more going on than a single attribute that they
could be pigeonholed into. The chemistry amongst the quartet is
wonderful and their camaraderie is very natural.
The
trailers were not a good representation of the humor in the movie.
There were a few parts that fell flat for me, but more often than not
I was laughing out loud despite myself. I was expecting the comedy to
be tolerable at best. Instead, I found a series of well-laid and
clever bits that served the characters and created a fun tone for the
movie. It’s a different comedic tone from the originals, but for
the most part it works very well.
The
story has good and bad. I’ll get into more detail below in the
Spoilers section. For the most part it’s solid and it certainly
moves along, but I think there were opportunities to give it and the
villain a little more depth that were missed in order to throw in
comedy scenes that weren’t integral to the plot or just spend too
long in other scenes for gags that aren’t worth it.
Feig isn’t
nearly as economical as Ivan Reitman. He doesn’t always recognize a
joke overstaying its welcome.
I
absolutely loved the effects. The ghosts and supernatural occurrences
were all nice to look at. There were also a lot of fresh, new things
that were exciting to see and opened up this new world in different
ways. Ghosts are different in the 2016 Ghostbusters
and things are more interesting because of it.
This
movie has some flaws. Some bigger than others. But nothing comes even
close to breaking it. Me, my son, and my wife all thoroughly enjoyed
Ghostbusters,
and I don’t know that any of us were expecting to. It’s big, it’s
fun, and the cast is absolutely wonderful. This is the most fun I’ve
had at a movie so far this year.
Do
yourself a favor and answer the call – go see Ghostbusters
and discover a whole new beginning for something that we’ve all
loved for decades.
Okay,
now for some
***SPOILERS***
The
Ghostbusters themselves are almost played more like superheroes. Not
that they’re overly competent, they just have a such a zeal for
doing what they’re doing – they love it and find joy in every
event that occurs. This is a bit of a variation from the originals,
where part of the humor was that Ghostbusting was a job like any
other. Not that the old cast didn’t find it rewarding, but this is
just a different take. Again – where this movie succeeds the most
is when it does new things.
Of
course, there are cast members other than Kristen Wiig, Melissa
McCarthy, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon (who was easily my favorite
and had all of the best lines and moments). Chris Hemsworth plays the
hilariously moronic Kevin. He’s too stupid to be believed and I
sort of feel like I should have been annoyed by it, but he was so
funny and the rest of the cast’s interactions with him are so good
that it works.
I
am glad the dance scene was saved for a credits sequence, though.
That would have been way too much and knocked the movie’s tone out
of whack. I feel like they did a great job of presenting the villain,
Rowan, as an actual threat, but if he had used his powers to make the
police and national guard do a dance routine it would have been
terrible. It skirted that at one point when he posed them all in the
classic Saturday
Night Fever
stance, but it never went further than that. Thankfully.
More
on Rowan – the movie would have been better served to cut certain
other scenes out or down and tell a bit more of his story. Prior to
turning into a gigantic version of the logo ghost – which I still
think was stupid – he is played by actor Neil Casey, who does
creepy well. He has a few scenes where we see that he is a weirdo
outcast, but it’s mostly because of people’s reactions to him and
not through actual storytelling. We don’t really get to know his
character that well aside from some lines where he talks about being
bullied and being different. Of course, I should probably feel lucky
that they didn’t throw in some overwrought subplot about the evils
of bullying. It seems that Rowan was a pretty bad guy, bullied or
not.
And that’s good. Sometimes villains just need to be villains.
Especially when they’re orchestrating a plot to energize the ley
lines that cross New York City so that they can lead an army of
ghosts against the living and enslave or destroy humanity.
I
like the idea that Rowan is sort of a poor man’s Ivo Shandor. He’s
not an architect in the traditional sense, but he is creating a way
to bring evil forces from another dimension into our world. While
there are slight echoes of the original movie here, it’s handled
well and in a new and innovative way. Rowan is placing devices along
New York’s ley lines to energize them and bring forth supernatural
entities. This is what causes the sudden ghost activity.
One
of the scenes that should have been cut down or maybe just cut out
entirely was one where the dean of the school where Abby and Kate
have been working kick them out. It’s not necessary and it goes on
far too long. The dean comes across like a secondary SNL
character and is a one-note joke that might not have deserved one
note. Fortunately this scene occurs fairly early on and is quickly
forgotten, but the time would have been better used with Rowan.
As
far as the story of the Ghostbusters themselves, it plays out in a
similar fashion to the original, but is different enough to be
satisfying. Add to that the great character work of the actors and
Melissa McCarthy’s STRONG performance as the heart of the group and
the story feels fresh and new, with major differences in the
interactions between the Ghostbusters and their approach to the job.
The
cameos are all a lot of fun. Bill Murray finally got his wish –
though it presented something of a speed bump in the plot, because
shouldn’t someone have had more of a problem with that? – and
Aykroyd and Hudson got to have some fun. Annie Potts was great and
thankfully called back to her first performance more than her second.
Best cameo was Sigourney Weaver.
Worst
was Ozzy Osbourne. Ugh.
Actually,
the whole concert scene that led up to his appearance might have been
the weakest spot in the movie. I don’t have any problem with most
of the elements of Ghostbusters
that were the result of modern humor and filmmaking versus how the
old movies were done. These are different times and today’s
audience goes for different things. Almost all of that stuff worked.
But the concert scene felt really out of place for some reason. If I
could discuss it with a group of people – say, on a podcast – I
bet we could nail it down.
For now I’ll just say that it felt
awkward and forced compared to the rest of the film. The scenes of
the women investigating the venue prior to the actual concert stuff
was great, though. And I did like Patty with the ghost on her
shoulders. It was as funny in the movie as it is in the trailers.
If
you’re going to go and see this movie, you’re going to have to
accept some different ghost stuff. Not only do ghosts possess people,
as seen in the trailers, they can also be either destroyed or
disincorporated. As a matter of fact, while ghost traps are used,
this is the more common method for dealing with ghosts in
Ghostbusters.
At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, but that’s only
because of what I’m used to. The movie explains the “science”
of it and the thing is that it makes for much more dynamic scenes of
Ghostbusting. Now, rather than having to throw a trap down to deal
with a ghost, the Ghostbusters have a lot more freedom to move around
and engage with the supernatural in a much more exciting fashion. And
the movie takes full advantage of that.
The
final scenes of the movie are of an epic supernatural outbreak in New
York. You’ve seen parts of it in the trailers and it’s just as
impressive as it looks. What you don’t really see is just how
awesome it is to watch the Ghostbusters deal with these hordes of
Class-5 full roaming vapors. There are some great action sequences
that simply wouldn’t have been possible if they’d had to trap
every ghost.
They
also wouldn’t have been possible without Jillian Holtzmann’s
wonderful toys.
There’s
all kinds of awesome gear in Ghostbusters.
One of the best things about this new team is their pure enthusiasm
for what they’re doing. I was a big fan of the new proton packs as
soon as I saw them, but there’s so much more than that. Kate
McKinnon plays Holtzmann as an utterly delightful nutjob who gets her
kicks finding new ways to destroy, disperse, and otherwise
discombobulate unwelcome spirits. Some of the best scenes are of
Holtzmann working on her tech and of the others using it.
Unfortunately,
one of the casualties of the hilarious scenes of equipment testing is
scenes of ghostbusting. That may not necessarily be a bad thing or an
oversight, as the concept of the Ghostbusters seems to be approached
differently here. As I mentioned above, the old movies treated it
like a job. The new movie seems to look at it as a public service,
like the police or the fire department. It’s an interesting take
and indicative of the differences between the 80s and the present
day. The movie ends with the Ghostbusters actually working for New
York City government. On the one hand I’m not sure how I feel about
that, but on the other it almost completely eliminates the
possibility of a sequel beginning in the same disappointing way that
Ghostbusters
II did.
It definitely sets up more of a The
Real Ghostbusters
scenario as far as the kinds of stories that can be told. It also
eliminates the financial factor, which means Holtzmann can keep
making bigger and crazier ghost busting toys.
One
of the things that excited me the most is the amount of potential
world-building that I perceived. There are references to other
dimensions in a much more meaningful way than there ever were in the
original movies. We don’t just see the gateway this time, we go
through
it. Considering the fact that Dan Aykroyd’s original treatment for
Ghostbusters
– with the unwieldy title Ghost
Smashers
– included travel through time and across dimensions, this is an
exciting tease.
But
that’s all it is. Yet another thing to admire about this new
Ghostbusters
is how self-contained it is. It’s a full story. There are certainly
possibilities for further stories, but it doesn’t lean on anything.
There’s no information that will only pay off in a future
installment and no significant questions that remain unanswered. In a
day and age where movie studios are banking on every film
representing a new franchise, Ghostbusters
is completely independent. You need never see another movie to
appreciate it fully. But it made me want
more movies.
Ghostbusters
isn’t the best movie I’ve seen in 2016, but it was the most fun
and one of my favorites. I’m eager to see it again and I’ll be
recommending it to anyone that asks.
If you enjoyed this review, it was originally posted on SupportPhantom.com, my Patreon page, on July 15th. To access early reviews and other exclusive content, go there now and support Phantom!
No comments:
Post a Comment