Friday, July 29, 2016

Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters; fantasy comedy, USA, 2016; D: Paul Feig, S: Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Chris Hemsworth, Neil Casey, Cecily Strong, Andy Garcia, Charles Dance, Ed Begley Jr., Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts

Erin Gilbert is trying to build up a serious reputation in academic circles, but, unfortunately for her, the people haven't forgotten a book about ghosts she wrote with friend Abby. These paranormal things start to become real, though, when bizarre ghosts start appearing and attacking people in town. Erin, Abby, Jillian Holtzman and Patty team up to become Ghostbusters that will fight the menace. It turns out that the ghosts originate from Rowan, an angry hotel employee who is sick of bullying and thus decided to destroy the world. Luckily, the Ghostbusters manage to stop him and save the day.

The 2016 reboot of the famed '84 film is decent, though one has to openly admit one thing: even at its best, this film is still "Ghostbusters", "Ghostbusters II" and "The Real Ghostbusters" at their weakest level. 27 years after the last film, and two years after its co-creator Harold Ramis passed away, Paul Feig decided to reboot the franchise with an all female cast, which caused a certain anger among fans, though the impression would not have been a lot better even if the original cast were playing these roles, anyway, since the film "expanded" its repertoire with some crude and vulgar jokes, some of which clash terribly with the original "Ghostbusters" humor that was an intellectual comedy, as well as with too much empty walk and Feig's trademark endless 'small-chat-humor' that is thin: several bad jokes could have been easily cut out, which would have improved the film, especially in the bizarrely pointless running gag of the girls hiring the dumb Kevin as their secretary just because he is handsome, which seems as if it came from one weak "iCarly" episode.

For instance, the moment where Abby asks if there is sugar in the coffee, and Kevin takes a sip and then spits it out in the cup before giving her back, just screams for a 'deleted scene'. Even the cameos from the original cast are meagre, including Bill Murray who usually always delivered a great cameo role. Still, as it is, there are a few good laughs here, mostly when the film puts some effort in dialogues ("The fourth apocalypse? Sounds like a franchise nobody wanted"; "Don't be like the mayor from "Jaws"!" - "Erghh!... Don't ever compare me to the "Jaws"-mayor!"; after Holtzman defeats the ghouls with her karate moves, she says this cute line: "You've been Holtzman-ed!") and some of the cast manages to be charming, such as Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon. The film tries too hard to be likable to the audience, yet works the best when it just simply let's go and tries to be a natural, genuine fun. Overall, a rather solid reboot, though in the shadow of the original two films: it has more ghosts, but less spirit.

Grade;+

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