Is it as good as the 1984 original? Though “Ghostbusters” hasn’t officially been screened for Chinese officials, its subject matter will likely run afoul of the country’s censors, according to an insider. At the same time, the continued rise of social media means that one bungled tweet can brand someone a woman-hater.
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Melissa McCarthy’s Abby Yates and Kristen Wiig’s Erin Gilbert are both disgraced NY academics who’ve lost favour by trying to use science to prove the existence of ghosts. This makes them the flawless market for the film to recoup some of its budget because that certainly isn’t happening in America, where the young kids who don’t know any better will be watching The Secret Life of Pets and anyone older still has memories of Bill Murray saying, “We came, we saw, we kicked its ass”, and don’t want them tainted.
So, what I’m getting at is, by my own code of movie conduct, I should HATE the new Ghostbusters movie.
Unlike the 1984 film, the new “Busters” suffer from a chemistry problem. Given the volume of criticism the movie faced during pre-production, a response was probably inevitable, and to Feig’s credit, not every fourth-wall-breaking moment falls flat.
For months, controversy has swirled around the new “Ghostbusters” movie. Their characters are so frighteningly underwritten (I couldn’t tell you a single thing about McCarthy’s scientist) that they seem more like plug-and-play figures in a larger Hollywood scheme than believable humans. And Feig did let the haters get to him once: while on vacation after wrapping principal photography on the movie, he lashed out at one particular relentless d-bag on Twitter, eventually telling the guy to go f– himself. The fault lies with the lazy writing and intentionally cheesy special effects that would rather remind us of the source material without trying to do anything fresh or different. Although writer/director Paul Feig (“Spy”), has seen and delivered his fair share of hit comedies, he somehow fell short this time around. Last year, an all-female Ghostbusters was announced, and they all decided it would be bad and they would not watch it. So why not a version where you have women playing the lead roles? “That’s an insult to this franchise”, reads another top comment.
As a tech startup, the Ghostbusters’ timing is just right.
“You know, Kate is who she is and I love the relationship between Kate and Melissa’s characters”, he continued.
Neil Casey’s villain is another addition that generally works on both a straightforward and meta-textual level.
“Ghostbusters” may not end up being the most attended film of the summer, but it has certainly been the most discussed, especially given its cast of female protagonists instead of the male stars featured in the original. Once the Ghostbusters actually join together and bag their first real ghostly catch, the film becomes more leaden, servicing a plot that never really feels that involving. And then Harold Ramis, the beloved co-star and co-writer of the original, got very sick with vasculitis and died in February 2014 at age 69. Original Ghostbusters cast members Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts Sigourney and Dan Aykroyd will all make a cameo.
What he does on-screen – by helping to redefine who is permitted to draw laughs in movies – makes Feig a thoughtful successor to Ramis, who made a series of soulful, memorable comedies about the meaning of manhood (“Groundhog Day”, “Multiplicity”). Of course, all of those movies were much cheaper than “Ghostbusters”, which carries a hefty $144 million budget.
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No one performance dominates the new “Ghostbusters”, which is for the most part democratically comic (a Paul Feig signature), although Kate McKinnon’s magnificent, eccentric turn comes close.
