Review of Ghostbusters (2016) by Mike C — 09 Feb 2017

I really wanted to like Ghost Busters (2016) after hearing the luke warm/good reviews from friends and critics. There obviously were some really funny moments (i.e. chris hemsworth and Kate McKinnon scenes)-- but I have to say... most of these funny moments did more to hurt the overall film than help it. It felt like an extended ghostbusters themed SNL sketch.

My biggest criticism is the film was extremely overwritten with jokes-- it's almost as if they were afraid to allow the viewer to settle into the plot and actually be afraid of ghosts. This truly did not feel like a ghostbusters film. As Jenny Lorenzo put it "it felt like Brides Maids with proton packs". Every time we went into a "Chris Hemsworth is dumb" sequence it felt like they were breaking from the plot and characters for a quick comedy sketch... and then went right back to the movie. Even the dog named "Mike Hat" gag seemed like a random out of place "whose on first sketch" injected in the middle of a normal scene. Yes, it was funny-- but did we really need to have that there? This sort of writing made the pacing feel all over the place.

The thing about the original ghostbusters (and I would even argue the lackluster sequel) is it was not just a comedy. There are genuinely scary scenes throughout both original ghostbuster films that raise the stakes and keep the viewer invested in the outcome (with some welcome comedy relief from our heroes to string it together). Some of these genuinely scary scenes include the opening scene with the librarian who encounters the first ghost of the film, Dana putting away the groceries where the eggs start to boil themselves on the kitchen counter, the arm chair coming to life and abducting Dana, and even rick moranis being chased by the gargoyle leaned more heavily on horror than comedy.

If you took out all of the jokes of Ghostbusters (1984), you would still have a genuinely scary film. However, if you take away the jokes of Ghostbusters (2016)-- there is no movie. There were no genuinely scary moments of this film, because it was written soley as a rapid-fire comedy. Not a ghostbuster film. My beef with this film is more a beef with the state of main stream comedies that are written today. Heavy on the quick paced jokes-- light on the plot and character development. And then people leave the theatre and remember how often they laughed-- so they round up and say it was a good movie. Ghostbusters (2016) lacked the attention to the movie part of the movie-- and instead focussed on an A.D.D. comedy experience hoping it would pass as an entry in the Ghostbusters franchise. I'm all for women leading films (and this film had GREAT potential with the talent involved), but this is not the film to celebrate. This didn't ruin my childhood-- but it ruined an opportunity to make a truly smart and funny film to revitalize the ghostbusters universe.