Review of Ghostbusters (2016) by Peter P — 24 Mar 2018

Honestly, its not as bad as I heard. Like most of us, I kept hearing people going on and on about how absolutely horrid it was and how it was not enough like the original movies/too much like the original movies/something something feminazi-i-have-no-social-life.

Honestly, I liked it. I had a lot of fun with this one.

For one, the action scenes are a lot better than the 1980s film, though in all fairness thats because we have a lot better technology these days and we can make them better.

Some of the nods to the originals were neat too. slimer stealing the Ecto-1 and going joyriding was funny as hell, the villain turning into a giant version of the Ghostbusters symbol was a neat twist on the ending, and the cameos by the original Ghostbusters weren't as dumb as people made them out to be, at least to me.

Also, dammit I liked the villain. Rowan had one major thing over Shandor and Vigo and its this: he's relatable. He's not some millionare architect who founded a doomsday cult, he's not a Carpathian monarch-turned-necromancer. He's some poor schlub who works a crappy job and got pushed around one too many times to the point where he snapped.

Speaking as someone who's worked retail most of their adult life, I get where Rowan is coming from. A guy who had to put up with so much shit that he wants to burn the entire world just to give them the biggest middle finger possible? Thats not just a compelling villain, thats me after having to work St. Patrick's Day! Hell he's even a SMARTER villain than them. He possesses one of the Ghostbusters and what does he do? He immediately walks her body to where they keep the proton packs and takes a lead pipe to them! If nothing else he actually treated the Ghostbusters as a legitimate threat and tried to disable their equipment. He knew without their laser guns they couldn't stop him.

So yeah, its a good twist on the classic movies. Is it amazing? It has a few flaws. Kevin is indeed a bit too dopey for his own good, the government trying to cover up ghosts instead of, say, trying to buy the Ghostbuster's equipment (or just confiscate it on national security grounds) is a bit weird, and there's a few other minor issues here and there.

... and godsdammit Holtzmann is awesome. I love watching her go all mad scientist throughout the movie.