Ghostbusters (2016)

Director: Paul Feig
Screenplay: Katie Dippold and Paul Feig
Stars: Melissa McCarthy (Abby Yates), Kristen Wiig (Erin Gilbert), Kate McKinnon (Jillian Holtzmann), Leslie Jones (Patty Tolan), Chris Hemsworth (Kevin Beckman), Cecily Strong (Jennifer Lynch), Andy García (Mayor Bradley), Neil Casey (Rowan North), Charles Dance (Harold Filmore), Michael Kenneth Williams (Agent Hawkins), Matt Walsh (Agent Rourke), Michael McDonald (Jonathan, the Theater Manager), Ed Begley Jr. (Ed Mulgrave), Steve Higgins (Dean Thomas Shanks), Toby Huss (Officer Stevenson), Nate Corddry (Graffiti Artist), Zach Woods (Tour Guide)
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Year of Release: 2016
Country: U.S.
Ghostbusters
GhostbustersNot surprisingly, all the misogynistic consternation about Paul Feig’s much-belated reboot of the long-moribund Ghostbusters franchise was for naught, as four funny women are just as capable of putting on proton packs and busting ghosts as four funny men. When certain corners of the Internet exploded a year and a half ago after Feig’s announcement that he was casting Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones to fill the shoes previously filled by Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson, who played the scientists-turned-paranormal exterminators in the original film (1984) and its sequel (1989), it was hard not to think of Champ Kind in Anchorman (2003) drawling idiotically, “It’s anchorman, not anchorlady.” To suggest that women somehow couldn’t front the rebooted franchise is fundamentally absurd, especially given that some of the funniest comedies in recent years—Bridesmaids (2010), The Heat (2012), and Spy (2014)— feature female protagonists and were, not coincidentally, directed by Feig.

No matter—the new Ghostbusters are women and they are frequently very funny, although the movie as a whole is never quite as funny as you think it will be. Feig and his cast give it their all, and there are numerous sequences that work quite marvelously. Chemistry is not a problem, as Wiig and McCarthy, who previously co-starred in Bridesmaids, and Saturday Night Live’s McKinnon (best known for her hilarious Hillary Clinton impersonation) and Jones gel almost immediately, with each contributing significant comedic ingredients to the stew. Wiig brings precision straight-woman timing as the upright Dr. Erin Gilbert, a physicist on the cusp of earning tenure at Columbia University before her past as a paranormal researcher is put out there for all the world to see when her former partner, Abby Yates (McCarthy), starts selling an old book they wrote together about ghosts on Amazon. McCarthy is all fire and “I don’t care what you think” attitude, which pairs nicely with both Wiig’s constant dismay and McKinnon’s wild-eyed weirdness (which she overplays a bit at times) as Jillian Holtzmann, the group’s eccentric, goggle-wearing engineer. The quartet is rounded out with Jones’s Patty Tolan, a subway worker who decides to join the group after witnessing a ghost in the subway tunnel. She has no scientific knowledge or engineering skills, but as she argues, she knows New York inside and out—plus she can borrow a hearse from her uncle’s funeral home so they can get around.

The plot involves a shifty-eyed kook named Rowan North (Neil Casey) who is intent on bringing about some sort of apocalypse by building devices that amplify paranormal activity and leaving them around New York City, which gives the newly formed ghostbusting squad plenty of work. The two previous Ghostbusters movies prominently featured a nerd who becomes a pawn of the villainous spirit (Rick Moranis and Peter MacNicol, respectively), but in this case the nerd is the villain, an amusing twist with which the movie should have done more. The Ghostbusters find themselves facing down a spectral murderess in a Victorian home-turned-museum, an executed inmate in a subway tunnel, and some kind of demon-gargoyle at a heavy metal concert, which the concertgoers at first mistake for one of the show’s special effects.

The ghosts are largely in keeping with the look from the 1980s films, although they have been punched up with digital effects and 3D, which at a few points puts their slime right in your lap. Since Casey’s villain is pretty much a non-starter—a narrative necessity who is in no way developed or even particularly interesting—when all hell is unleashed on lower Manhattan and he is jauntily running around inside the body of Kevin Beckman (Chris Hemsworth), the Ghostbusters’ hunky mimbo receptionist, there is little kick because his villainy and the havoc it wreaks are so rote. It makes you wish for the good old days of Gozer and Vigo (although nothing can top the lameness of Ghostbusters II’s climactic walking State of Liberty). Perhaps to placate the old-school fans, the new Ghostbusters is stuffed with allusions to the original—from Ray Parker Jr.’s indelible theme song, to the fire station used as Ghostbusters headquarters, to a certain “ugly little spud”—as well as cameos by a number of familiar faces, some of which work better than others (Bill Murray’s cameo feels utterly phoned in, whereas Aykroyd’s surprise appearance has great energy and a funny punchline).

However, what the new one lacks is the original film’s near-perfect balance of high-brow and low-brow comedy and then-cutting-edge special effects. Feig and company get the main characters right—these are Ghostbusters I’d like to hang out with again—but so much of the peripheral humor is unnecessarily exaggerated and extended. A perfect example is the scene in which Abby and Holtzmann are kicked out of the upstart for-profit science-and-techology college they’ve been calling home for the past several years by a severely unqualified dean in a Hawaiian shirt (Steve Higgins). The indignity of the moment is humorous enough, but the scene gets extended with Higgins giving them the middle finger half a dozen ways, each more elaborate than the previous. It’s funny in its own way, but utterly unnecessary and in a sense gratuitous, and it brings the movie to a dead halt so a comedian can do a routine. Those kinds of forced laughs are sprinkled all throughout the film—numerous gags involving Hemsworth’s dim hunk of man-meat come to mind—and they usually make it drag, rather than enliven it. Maybe when it comes time for the sequel, which is all but assured, Feig will have a little more confidence in the basic scenario and feel less impetus to dress it up.

Copyright ©2016 James Kendrick

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All images copyright © Sony Pictures

Overall Rating: (2.5)




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