What’s Wrong With The New Ghostbusters Movie (Not Much, It’s Really Good!)
These funny guys got a lot of crap for being women in a Ghostbusters movie while meanwhile Jesse Eisenberg earns not scorn at all for either his bizarro nutjob Lex Luthor or the entire Now You See Me franchise. Life is not fair.
Ghostbusters is better than a lot of movies I’ve seen this year. It’s better than Batman Vs. Superman, it’s better than Xmen: Apocalypse, and it’s better than Tarzan. On the other hand, it’s not as funny as the funniest movies I’ve seen this year, like Deadpool and Hail, Caesar! The original Ghostbusters succeeded both as a comedy and sci-fi action adventure, a feat very few movies have ever accomplished. While the new one is not as successful, it’s better than most attempts at being funny and scary (including Ghostbusters 2). Still, there are a couple of things we wished had gone differently (and we hope are different in the future movies). Here are our minor quibbles with the new Ghostbusters movie.
The cast are even funnier here than they have been on Saturday Night Live, which is a pretty high bar (except for Chris Hemsworth)
The Wiig and McCarthy characters are underdeveloped
Ghostbusters has an amazing cast. Kate McKinnon is deservedly getting the most attention for creating the super fun and hilarious Holtzmann, but Leslie Jones does a great job bringing heart and energy as well (and Chris Hemsworth is really damn funny). The weaker links are the undercooked leaders of the bunch. Wiig’s Gilbert seems to be the central character but her entire arc (going from believer to unbeliever to believer) is accomplished in the first act. She then disappears into the background of the movie (reduced to lusting after Hemsworth and not much else). McCarthy has a lot of fun with her character Yates but she too doesn’t have very much to do once McKinnon and Jones steal the show (the movie picks up considerably whenever those two are around). Given that the relationship between Gilbert and Yates is the heart of the movie, it seems weird that we don’t get to know these two better and the movie would have benefited from centering more on either of them. Maybe in the next one we’ll see them get to cut loose a little more.
Ah man, who’s gonna play Hillary Clinton on SNL when Kate McKinnon gets to be too busy starring in movies?
The Weird Relationship to the Original
The new Ghostbusters has a weird relationship it with the original movie. Despite giving the new team some neat equipment and a new headquarters (for a while), the movie holds pretty tightly to the original material (fired professors, one African-American character, etc). Watching it makes you feel as though it has certain beats it must hit, like the way James Bond must be British or Superman must be boring, while feeling free to get creative in other areas (e.g., sometimes they smash ghosts to pieces rather than catching them). Remakes and reboots struggle to establish a respectful relationship with some aspects of the source material. Star Trek: Into Darkness cast a new crew who look very similar to the original (but thought recasting the Indian Khan Singh as decidedly British would be no big deal). Jurassic World treats Jurassic Park with a passionate reverence (but acts as though the two sequels never happened). Here the Ghostbusters seem to exist in the same New York as the previous versions (Stay Puft and all) but the previous Ghostbusters never existed (though the actors all make brief cameos). I know it’s meant to be respectful but it feels weirdly unnerving. These cameos are a mixed bag too; the very best is the movie’s final one and the worst might well be Bill Murray’s. I’m not clear why the movie straddled this line this way, but it winds up feeling more strange and distracting from the current movie than respectful to the source material.
A lot of reviewers have noted that the new Ghostbusters is scarier than the original, but who the hell thought the original Ghostbusters was “scary?”
The Villain
I know, Ghostbusters movies are never really known for the excellent villains. This one is no exception. As with the other two movies, the Ghostbusters encounter another lonely loser but rather than living in their building or working at their art studio, the loner here turns out to play a much bigger role in the plot. While his motivations sort of make sense (and the idea that he can’t handle the insults and indignities that women like Yates and Gilbert have experienced all their lives is great but mostly unexplored), his knowledge and abilities don’t. How did he learn about all this supernatural stuff? How did he create all this equipment (there is some hint that he stole the idea from Yates and Gilbert, but isn’t Holtzmann the one building all their weapons?)? Without giving too much away, there’s a related issue regarding the inconsistencies around who is susceptible to ghostly possession and when, because in the final battle the ghosts seem perfectly capable of controlling the military personnel but do not attempt to control the Ghostbusters (or use the military to, you know, shoot them). Granted, I would not want to watch a guns v. Ghostbusters final sequence, but I wish there was some reasoning behind it.
She is one nutty professor.
The Final Act
Ghostbusters kinda lurches a bit in the beginning but really hits its stride toward the middle of the movie. The third act arrives heavily and kind of gracelessly as the Ghostbusters are inexplicably separated and apparently unable to use cell phones to contact one another. There is an amazing parade sequence that works really well but the final melee you’ve seen in the previews doesn’t connect as much. The heroes here don’t catch ghosts as much as brawl with them, which seems a little out of character for the three professors and an amateur historian. Then there’s the issue of the great throwaway cameo (involving Ecto 1) that would be hilarious as an isolated event but soon becomes essential to the heroes’ final plan. And that final plan is some lazy writing. I’m not sure how the final act seems to deflate the way it does but just when the stakes should be high, everything feels weirdly calm. It may be an issue of too many final bosses. It may also simply be that Ghostbusters tends to work better when the stakes are lower and the actors can react to each other, rather than to special effects. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a better ending than Ghostbusters 2 (and that parade is awesome), but it doesn’t have the same energy as the best parts of the rest of the film.
