Ghostbusters Review

7 out of 10

Cast:

Kristen Wiig as Erin Gilbert

Melissa McCarthy as Abby Yates

Kate McKinnon as Jillian Holtzmann

Leslie Jones as Patty Tolan

Chris Hemsworth as Kevin Beckman

Neil Casey as Rowan North

Cecily Strong as Jennifer Lynch

Andy García as Mayor Bradley

Charles Dance as Harold Filmore

Michael Kenneth Williams as Agent Hawkins

Matt Walsh as Agent Rourke

Ed Begley, Jr. as Ed Mulgrave, Jr.

Zach Woods as Tour Guide

Directed by Paul Feig

Ghostbusters Review:

The irony of modern studio filmmaking is that while people still crave new material, they never know quite what sort of new material they want. The middle ground then becomes trying to make something new out of something old, which misses as often as it hits for obvious reasons.

Case in point: Sony’s reboot of Ghostbusters [And this is an actual reboot – a complete recreation of continuity with only the brand name and premise held constant – as opposed to an in-continuity sequel to a series which has not been in the public eye or suffered some sort of perceived audience set back].

The risk-based reasons for doing it are unassailable – brand name awareness with 40-somethings and a proven premise – but they’re also a potential trap. Whenever it stops trying to remind us of its past, Ghostbusters can be pretty fun to watch, but it doesn’t stop reminding us very often.

It even starts in a very familiar place, Columbia University, where budding physicist Dr. Erin Gilbert (Wiig) is under consideration for tenure. The only thing standing in her way is her past as a paranormal researcher into ghosts, a past which has leapt back into view thanks to her old partner (McCarthy) republishing their book on the subject.

A trip to her lab to convince her to take the book down instead re-exposes Gilbert to a world she thought she’d left behind, and before you know it she and her newfound friends are setting up the first professional paranormal investigation and elimination service. And just in time, as someone else with a fondness for mixing science with spirits plans to bring the divide between the ghost world and the real world down for good unless the Ghostbusters can stop him.

Besides the new cast and (somewhat) new character setups, co-writer/director Paul Feig’s reinvention also has the foresight to try some new plot elements out (even as it recycles familiar bits). A villainous Ghostbuster has always seemed like the next logical step for the series after several ‘apocalyptic ghost invader’ stories and while this isn’t that, it’s a good experiment.

The film also avoids a forced romantic subplot for any of the Ghostbusters, allowing this new cadre to spend time focused on themselves and their evolving relationships with each other. Or at least that seems like the idea at the beginning; the only one who gets an actual character or character arc is Wiig’s Gilbert, who has spent the last decade trying to forget her work on the paranormal and become a respected physicist. She must slowly but surely accept that being a Ghostbuster is not only something not to be embarrassed of but is in fact her calling.

The rest of the Ghostbusters by comparison are basically the same at the end of the film as they were at the beginning and exist primarily as gag delivery mechanisms. Half of McKinnon’s dialogue is technobabble gibberish, while the rest is just out and out weirdness, which she makes work (she’s by far the funniest of the lot). Yates is a less annoying version of characters McCarthy has played in most of her other films and Jones spends most of her time yelling in surprise at strangeness around her, and leaving the group without a straight man to balance out its goofiness.

Which sounds more problematic than it is; the leads are too experienced as comediennes to deliver their jokes badly or mistime their riffs. But they’re also so experienced we’ve seen most of the jokes they’re doing somewhere else and it frequently feels like the cast is resting on its laurels rather than stretching their wings and reaching for something new.

While there are a number of callbacks to the original film (which Feig has no problem stopping dead to linger on, whether it makes sense to do so or not), the new Ghostbusters is trapped more by the strictures of modern comedy than by its famous ancestor. The plot and premise are often just an excuse to get its cast in place to start riffing with each other. As a result, and like a lot of Feig’s other films, the laughs tend to be hit and miss as he and his co-creators seem more interested in quantity of jokes at the expense of sharpening a smaller number to their utmost.

It may be for that reason that Hemsworth steals so many of his scenes; his role is essentially a single joke (the world’s prettiest and dumbest human being), but it’s not one he can riff on endlessly, so it comes and goes as needed and each time a little more ridiculous. Compare poor Kevin’s inability to understand that he does not hear through his eyes to McCarthy’s continuous battle with a Chinese restaurant for a good bowl of wonton soup or Wiig’s trademark mini-monologues about embarrassment. It’s not hard to see where the best laughs are to be found.

But at least that has something to do with the characters. Ghostbusters spends an inordinate amount of time showcasing its hardware, including all the new gadgets team mad scientist Holtzmann (McKinnon) has come up with. It delivers a few good sight gags with the devices but also feels like a mixture of toy commercial and set up for the extended act three fight sequence during which the proton packs go from capturing ghosts to blowing them up for no particular reason.

A lot of that sounds like low carping, and it is, but the modern Ghostbusters is far from a failure. Feig and his cast are far too talented to make a completely unfunny mess; perhaps not a classic for the ages, but not a mess.

The worst that can be said about it is that it’s ordinary, reliant on frequently very familiar comic set ups and too much nostalgia instead of finding an original voice. The best that can be said is that when it does try something new it shows just how good a film it can be, and it does that often enough to keep its head above water.

Did we really need another Ghostbusters movie? Maybe not. Could this director and this cast have made a better version than the one we get? Probably so. But there’s enough good ideas in here that with some time and reflection there’s a good chance the next film can fix these problems and produce something genuinely great. As long as they don’t bring back Zuul or something stupid like that.