It’s the film that, as soon as it was announced, has ridden a wave of hatred from middle-aged white men on Reddit, 4Chan and the Youtube comment section claiming that this movie would ruin the original Ghostbuster films. It seems many of these guys seem to forget just how bad Ghostbusters 2 really was, but at the end of the day, is Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters reboot really worth all the hate?
If you can just put nostalgia aside and accept this film for what it is, you might actually have some fun. The humour is strong with some solidly funny banter between characters, there's some well done jump-scares, there’s some good character designs, but most of all, it’s just fun. If you can't put nostalgia aside, then it's not as good as the original, but at least it's better than Ghostbusters II.
Borrowing beats from the original film and modernising them, this new version of the Ghostbusters also wears it's love of the original on its sleeve wholeheartedly. You have some great performances from the whole cast with Kate McKinnon and Chris Hemsworth being the real standouts. She keeps the weird dialed up to 11 throughout the entire runtime whilst Hemsworth just brings the funny in every scene he's in. What's extra pleasing is that, much like Rose Byrne in Bad Neighbors, he was able to use his Australian accent which is great to see in an American film and easily helped to sell his humour even more-so.
The humour itself is consistently strong throughout, although those expecting Bridesmaids-level swearing and lewdness may want to temper their expectations due to the PG rating. And before people get up in arms over that, even if the film had been cast with Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill and Craig Robinson you still would have had the humour pulled back down to PG-friendly territory, however there are still a few naughty jokes that managed to slip past the censors.
The film isn't without its faults though, the villain is really not needed but is also irritatingly bad on a level the wreaks of pantomime. The bad guy literally walks around talking out loud to no one in particular basically explaining his motivations to the audience every time he's on screen - and it’s cliched, really really cliched. The final act also suffers from some poor plotting that I feel is really endemic of Sony's approach to storytelling. Without giving too much away: one of the team is taken away in front of the other members of the team, they know who has taken them and what they plan to do but don't appear to do anything about this until the apocalypse arrives, it just doesn't make sense.
So, a lot of the hate comes down to the fact that this film is a reboot, and to be honest, it took me many years to make my peace with reboots and remakes. There is naturally a cynical side to reboots and remakes in the sense that they are easier to market and a safer financial bet due to there already being an in-built audience, but there is another reason that reboots exist: to keep these stories in popular culture and relevant. As hard as it might be to believe, kids today don’t know who Indiana Jones is, or what The Goonies are, or what Back To The Future is, and until The Force Awakens came out, many of them had never even seen Star Wars - trust me, I’ve taught kids for the last decade. So reboots are there to keep these stories in the public conscious. Once again, it might be really hard for white males between the age of 35-45 to believe, but these films are not made for them and the release of a new interpretation of their favourite film has no impact on the original because the original still exists for them to watch.
Just on a side note though, if you are one of those winging man-babies that claim to be a film reviewer yet are refusing to review this film, then you are really sh*t at your job and you’re not a f*cking film critic in my eyes.
Overall, the film is fun and is in no danger of destroying anyone's childhood, but we do need to keep in mind when saying that that man-babies think differently to you and I. As far as modern updates go, it has more hits than misses but the film will definitely leave you wanting to see more of these characters once the credits roll. Whilst talking about the end credits, the new version of the classic Ghostbusters tune may suck, but stay for Chris Hemsworth's dance routine.
Ghostbusters gets Three and a Half out of Five Stars (or Three and a Half out of Five middle-aged white guys missing out on all the fun - but that's what YouTube comments are for am I right?)
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