Review of Ghostbusters (1984) by Manicure — 22 Nov 2020

First of all, I understand the financial success behind the original “Ghostbusters” idea: their weird equipment and traps, the firehouse base, the Ectomobile, the good chemistry of the leads, the colorful and inventive design of the creatures, the soundtrack…so many elements of this film are potentially iconic, but everything gets spoiled by the underwhelming writing.

The relaxed tone they chose is perfect, but the jokes are not nearly as witty as they were meant to be, the plot is contrived to say the least, characters have no development, sometimes new people are introduced and just left hanging there without purpose (Winston, Dana’s hinted “boyfriend”).

Verkman’s character outshines the others at first, but his humor gets repetitive quickly. It’s weird when a film that finds its climax with one-liners like “This man has no dick” or situations like Dan Aykroyd getting a ghost blowjob is regarded as a timeless comedy masterpiece.

Again, the film is not terrible, it has more than a few nice ideas and funny situations indeed, but overall is nothing more than your average ‘80s mainstream comedy.