(For the purposes of criticism and really expressing the
positives and negatives of the film, I have to issue a SPOILER ALERT for this
review. At this point, the majority would have seen this film by now and it has
been massively spoiled by the trailers and online forums for all of the major
plot beats but without the connective scenes to put them into context. Be forewarned on that and if you want to get
my overall reaction, read the last two paragraphs that sum up and express my overall
thoughts of the film. Give it a read and
I hope you find this review informative.)
It has been close to 32 years since a particular surprise of
a film came out called Ghostbusters,
a comedy/horror/sci-fi/disaster film that blends genres of stories and troupes
so seamlessly together along with a cast that was truly at the top of their A
game, and a pretty clever way to tell a larger than life story with grounded
characters to help make us believe in the fiction. Now, with the passing of Harold Ramis about 2
years ago and a new creative team along with Sony taking control of the
series, they decided to remake the film
from scratch to create a Marvel styled cinematic universe of all things
Ghostbusters from sequels to spinoffs of popular characters in this revamped
cinematic vision of the series. However,
it hinges on the success of this latest reboot of 80’s films known as Ghostbusters: Answer The Call with Paul
Feig as the director/writer with the other writer being Katie Dippold (The Heat) along with a cast of
actresses/comedians like Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and
Leslie Jones donning the suits and proton packs in this origin/retread of the
other film entries in this series. With
all of the controversy surrounding this film regarding sexism and legit
criticism regarding its very existence, is this creative team along with a
different yet familiar take on an iconic horror/comedy classic enough to
justify its reason for being made? Let’s
get right into as we explore each element of the film from what it does right
and where it misses the mark.
The story follows Professor Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig), as
she is about to get tenure at Colombia University (a callback to the origins of
the original film) until she is approached by a museum curator of the Albright
Manor in midtown Manhattan about a recent haunting that has occurred there
after scaring a tour guide to a bowel movement (Zach Woods, an ensemble actor
from Silicon Valley) and reading a book called “Ghosts of Our Past” that she
co-wrote with her former colleague and friend Professor Abby Yates (Melissa
McCarthy), who has continued to research paranormal activities and phenomenon
with an eccentric, mad scientist Dr. Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon). They eventually encounter a ghost that has
been brought into our world by a villainous, creepy hotel janitor named Rowan
North (Neil Casey) who seeks to rip the very barriers of the living and dead
dimensions to bring about an end to the world literally, with MTA worker/NYC
Historian Hobbyist Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones) to join the team for her streets
smarts and historical knowledge of the city.
Together, they form the Ghostbusters just as they have to contain a
growing paranormal threat that no one takes seriously despite the skepticism
surrounding their work and their very existence. It is up to the team to work together to not
only be a reliable force of defense against the supernatural but to stop the
fourth cataclysm from happening in New York.
This narrative tries to not only be different in its
characters, their development, and overall plot but to also homage and repeat
familiar beats of the original film along with its sequel in certain places of
the film. This leads to confusion as to
what this film is trying to be on its own as it does neither of these elements
well enough to mesh them together.
However, the story shows it potential when it strikes its own chord with
the plot beats and character chemistry at least for the first half of this
film. There is a very light, cartoony
tone present throughout the film that may be refreshing to see from a
blockbuster film despite being the complete opposite to the grounded yet
believably sarcastically dry witty fun of the original film. So, it’s not all really flawed until you get to
not only the massive plot holes/contradictions but the nonsensical, noisy and
weightless second half of this film.
When they don the suits and go on their first job as the Ghostbusters, the very moment we get to the second half, when the entire film starts
to tear at the seams with major flaws in its designs and execution of them. The film has a very sluggish pacing and
rhythm to it by the time they capture their first ghost. It does not help that the tone of the scenes
are all over the place from being juvenile to mean spirited and brutal with
some of the deaths that occur in this film.
There are scenes that are missing in this film that have butchered the
connective parts of the story that make certain story/character arcs make no
sense and just further question the legitimacy of this world. This is also where the film slows down for
too long before it picks up with the possession scene (the start of the last
act) and it seems to have suffered the most in the editing stage of this
film. Those were the issues with the
second act of this film, as the climax is where the film takes a nosedive off a
cliff dramatically and emotionally.
The last act of this film is where the built in issues of
the script and production finally show up with an overblown, unengaging finale
that is both ludicrously childish and moronic all the way through it. They actually ignore the established rules of
their weapons that were only able to wrangle the ghost but now work like laser
guns that can blow away ghosts into dead slime as well as being surprisingly
acrobatic for an average woman that hasn’t exercised or trained to move like
soldiers/special agents with heavy equipment.
It throws the believability of the world out the window with moments
like that, all topped off with a really ridiculous 2D animation of the logo
coming to life as a CGI monstrosity that was out of place and just really lame
to watch this questionable idea come to life.
It all leads to an convenient fix of the carnage and mayhem done to the
city as well as the escape out of the vortex being dumb and just nonsensical as
to how they got out of that vortex from another dimension to the lobby of the
Empire State Building. The climax tosses
everything at you to see what sticks and a majority of it does not work other
than the look of the effects in tandem with the goofy, ridiculousness of the
action set pieces being the only fun to be had from this act.
Let’s allow for some time to be dedicated to the style of
comedy used for this film as this is the complete opposite of the original
film’s style driven by dry wit and character interactions. It tends to be more along the lines of SNL
(Saturday Night Live) and Family Guy with the joke a minute technique with
every scene having a character throw out different jokes, to see which one will
stick. The problem with this is that it
does not allow for the story or characters to be developed and ultimately
reduces them into caricatures of themselves.
It does not help that the humor is very crass and low brow consistently,
coupled with Seinfeld style of bickering comedy with Abby and Erin that does
not land any genuine laughs for this viewer.
There will be fans of this humor but this writer along with a few others
was not one of them and it is a shame the film relies on this type of comedy
instead of being cleverly written and witty with the material.
With the emphasis on having two writers work out the
characters for the actresses with possibly no meaningful input to their
characters from them, this is a distinctive difference that evidently lies at
the core problem of this remake where the original film had the writers be the
characters and fine tune every one of the performances on set with the
director, allowing for the improvisation to work in sync with the actors. This is an important critique to bring up as
it does explain the changes in the tone throughout this film as well as being
too insistent on being a comedy but only loosely parodying the other genres of
story from Horror to Sci-Fi. This
approach may click with people but for others, it will be alienating at times
and ultimately unfunny with very few funny moments sprinkled too far apart from
each other.
Before we get into the performances properly, let’s go into
the character actions and motivations that made no sense at all and really
brought this viewer out of the film other than the cameos. There are numerous plot holes with the
characters actions specifically with Rowan regarding his ability to create the dimension
ripper technology from a book as well as the power he attains later on in the
film (how does he have the ability to shape into a form of the destructor like
Gozer?). There is also the question of
how Holtzmann is creating these destructive weapons so easily and quickly other
than being a quirk of the character. It
is also apparent that a decent chunk of the friendship story between Erin and
Abby has been severely edited with a missing plot point from that story-line
that makes the climax nonsensical and emotionally unengaging. There is also the questionable plot point of
the Ghostbusters being made into frauds that seems like it would be a big part
of the film and give an excuse to stretch out this storyline for sequels but it
never feels like it has any meaningful impact on the characters or the world as
everyone ends up loving and respecting the Ghostbusters by the end of the
film. But that’s not the only problem
with the writing for this film as it serves to represent how this film was
problematic from the moment the script was finished and no one decided to do
another pass with a possibility for a re-write or two.
The motivations for each character is also another element
of the script that is not properly developed as well as being flimsy and weak
for a certain villain to be threatening to the heroes or the city. In all honesty, Rowan’s motivation to take
out everyone because they bullied him as a kid and he wants to make their lives
a living hell was perhaps the most lazy, childish means to make a character
into the bad guy. It also seems odd that
Erin would jump on board with being a Ghostbuster especially when she seem to
have tension with Abby that ultimately feels pointless to develop as the film
does not allow for that storyline to develop for the emotional climax of it
near the end of the Times Square battle.
The detailed analysis and critique of the writing, plot, and characters
was necessary as it represents the core problem of the film with the other
components either being average in effort or very poor looking in art direction
and visual effects.
On a side note, this film also fails to be a New York film
as well. That is important to bring up
since the setting is a major character of the original films and represents the
city in a way that it becomes a part of the story and way for it to be grounded
within reality. This film feels like it
was made in a generic metropolis that happens to have this location or that. The way the filmmakers convey space and
distance of each location in this film is lazily done and is used for the sake
of the cool shot which every blockbuster film falls into doing constantly
without really considering how a frame of a shot conveys the importance of a
location to the story itself. It may not
faze certain viewers but for fans of the series in live action or animated
form, that is a major letdown on the parts of filmmakers and writers to not
really convey the life and character of New York City in this film as it is a
part of the iconography for this series.
We can now get to the performances from the main leads,
supporting players, and cameo cast with the characters they played and how they
performed overall. We start with the
leads with Kristen Wiig who plays Erin Gilbert as a smart yet awkward professor
of Particle Physics and its relation to paranormal dimensions. She does the best with the material provided
to her usual character type from Bridesmaid and is decent in the film as the
lead character to follow with one moment of dramatic heft that gets dropped in
lieu of more jokes, making her the typical heroine with personal issues. While Melissa McCarthy as Abby is very
understated in her role as well as been given the fat, hungry comedic
stereotype that is repeated constantly throughout the film for her need of
Chinese food. She falls into that
caricature due to poor writing and the need for low brow humor to separate how
similar and uninteresting her character is to Erin whereas Kate McKinnon as
Holtzmann and Leslie Jones as Patty Tolan at least give their best shot at
really differentiating their characters from the other generic, shallowly
written protagonists of the group.
McKinnon is endearing at times as the crazed scientist/weapon specialist
who has a few funny moments but she tends to be annoying after the tenth time
she exaggerates her lines, jokes or mannerisms for the sake of getting a
laugh. As for Jones, she is the most
grounded of the characters ironically enough and actually does deliver some
decent, natural humor despite the loud nature of her performance at times. The lead cast are pretty decent in the film
and their talents show in giving the half-cooked material some life despite how
questionable the writing is with its creative choices in developing the
characters and plot.
As for the supporting cast and villain, they are a mixed bag
with one being surprisingly humorous and everyone else having one note with
their characters as well as a creepy yet uninteresting villain. The one that at least got some humor from
this writer was Chris Hemsworth as the blonde ditzy secretary David. His earnest performance provides some
surprisingly funny moments at the expense of the running gag/attitude towards
many of the male characters as being alpha male bullies, snobs, loners, and
being ambivalently dumb. As for the
villain of Rowan by Neil Cassey, he is very generic and just another disposable
villain in the veins of Marvel with a cheap yet dull reason for his evil plans
as well as just being forgettable. Andy
Garcia and Cecily Strong round out the remaining cast that are a part of this
story with Garcia just giving a bland yet annoyed performance while Strong is supposed to
be the bureaucrat that has a love/hate relationship with the Ghostbusters but
turns in a boring, unfunny performance as well.
This is the majority of the performances from the cast themselves and
they are very talented but they have to work with a mediocre script and a very
loose style of direction.
Now the cameos featured in this film, were absolutely
unnecessary and seemed a bit forced as well as uncomfortable for a few of the
actors that came back to give their “approval” of this reboot. Bill Murray shows up as a skeptic for at
least 2 scenes and his performance mirrors so much of Venkmann that it is
distracting to watch him be this skeptic to the Ghostbuster’s actions before
being killed in a unceremoniously, insulting way. Dan Aykroyd is a taxi driver that gives Erin
some sass in taking her to the climactic battle, with him speaking of a class 5
entity and how he “ain’t afraid of no ghost” before leaving her to just run to
Time Square with her suit and equipment on for some reason (she was in regular
clothes and yet, shows up fully dressed and loaded to fight ghosts in another
scene which is another example of sloppy editing). Annie Potts is ironically a
receptionist for the hotel Rowan works in, with the Ghostbusters talking to her
briefly before their first encounter with him and her appearance was the only
one that was cool and fun to see. Ernie
Hudson is Patty Tolan’s uncle who happens to be a funeral home owner that gives
the girls their vehicle and he still looks cool and awesome for a man of his
age. Harold Ramis is given a memorial
bust in the Colombia University scenes to honor him in respect which was kind
of cool to see. As for Sigourney Weaver, she only shows up in the end credits as Holtzmann's mentor and it is a charming small bit that is sort of redundant and adds a small character moment between the two characters. There are also one or
two celebrity cameos that are just out of place and really meaningless as it
did nothing for this writer or for other people in the audience.
It is time to wind down with the last components of this
review with the technical aspects from art direction, visual effects, editing
(needs to be discuss more clearly), and the music soundtrack/score featured in
this film. We can start with the art
direction as the film seems to have fallen into the same trappings as the
second original film by making the ghosts’ kid friendly and more in line with
Scooby Doo (live action/cartoon show alike).
That does not mean there are not some really cool looking ghosts in this
film with the parade balloons being the only ones that were the standouts of
the designs with everything else feeling generic and uninspired. However, the reliance on exaggerated designs
makes the ghosts not so terrifying or creepy to see as the original film was
able to pull off both, which might not be a problem for some but for
others, it does not leave much of an
impression for the story or world established in this film. So, the visual effects are not really the
problem here but the designs are and the creative use of them is very questionable
and does not leave any room for the director/writer to really blend the
different genres of stories seamlessly.
The visual effects along with the editing are competently
done with the effects looking surprisingly polished in contrast to the chunky
look of the ghosts in the trailers while the editing does get the story from
point A to B, it's not without some messy, creative choices made in conveying the
character arcs and motivations along with the thin plotline itself. The effects look good for the most part but
it does get a little too synthetic by the end of the film and it comes across
as lifeless and just not amazing to watch especially with the dumb resolution
of the climax. The editing is where the
film does showcase its major problems with the plot and humor of the film as it
actually holds on the jokes for too long to be funny or even cuts off the
punchline to them as well as the lack of character development or arcs not
given the time to develop at all. This
means the film was heavily edited with scenes that were in the trailer but were
not featured in the film at all, along with scenes that were questionably cut, making different plot points with the character and threat of the film not
connecting in the right place. So in
this regard, it was decent in the work put into cleaning up the mess of the
script and making it look bright, colorful, and a visual feast to the eyes
despite not leaving an impression on you with its unremarkable art designs of
the ghost as well as the erratic nature of the editing.
Where the film further falls into mediocre territory is with
its music arrangement and soundtrack featured in this film. The score is very cookie cutter generic with
the typical loud flourishes and choruses that only deviates from the norm when
they do remixes of the theme that were cool to hear with the exception of the
song remixes of that theme. This
soundtrack does nothing to really give the film its own voice by having a slew
of songs from rock, electronica pop, and rap throughout the film that just
feels forced and cringe worthy to be hip and cool with this generation of
viewers just like the sequel of the original film Ghostbusters II. This is a
contrast to the films before this one where Elmer Bernstein for the original
film injected so much character and genre styles of horror and comedy with
elements of sci-fi themes within the compositional score that it really made it
unique and still remarkable to hear to this day.
After everything that has been explored and analyzed, the
main question that Ghostbusters: Answer
The Call fails to provide an answer to, was if it was a film that needed to be rebooted
in the first place. There is fun to be
had with the set pieces and the leads are decent despite the writing of their
characters as well as the editing of their storylines failing to make them more
than just a series of caricature and quirks.
However, the film does not give a compelling enough reason to justify its existence as it repeats familiar beats found in the
original film within this remake as they desperately try to stretch this out into
a series of sequels and spinoffs that could correct the mistakes made here but
could just expand on the problems present in this film. This falls into the same quality of films in
the veins of Total Recall, Robocop, and
even The Amazing Spider-Man (shoddy
editing, misleading marketing present, cut scenes not featured in the film but
in the trailer) in that it may have ticked all the right boxes but the passion,
love, and energy that made those original films captivating, memorable, and
timeless to an extent is completely absent here. It is a shame this film does not do enough to
justify or even do something different with a cool premise but stick to a
proven formula that we have already seen before done better by the original and
other films that found a way to change it up a bit.
Score: ** out of *****
Now, the overall thoughts of this film and the reboot is not
one of anger or despise for it but one of disappointment and indifference to it
as Ghostbusters: Answer The Call does
not do enough differently in plot and characters as well as the action and
humor to really stand on its own or even be a genuine tribute to the original 2
films. This has watered down the
genuinely unique qualities of this premise and made it more juvenile towards
its humor, which means this tends to be mediocre family entertainment when the
film could have been so much more than a summation of parts. The performances were meh to really annoying
specifically from the male characters ironically enough and the writing is
extremely underdeveloped with its character motivations/arcs along with a very
thin plot that is reliant on jokes and gags to carry it along, when that humor does
not deliver in any meaningful way. The
effects are decent despite the exaggerated art direction and the editing does
get the film from point A to B but it is still messy in connecting plot points
together and really ruining quite a few of the jokes as well as including some
that do not work at all. The music is
absolutely forgettable and typical junk music that tries to appeal to a younger
crowd in a very annoying way. This is
another remake in the veins of the other Sony driven remakes of the 80’s/90’s (Total Recall, Robocop) that might have
been competently made but was ultimately forgettable and pointless for just
being a lazy, retread of the original film but not even committing enough of
itself to deviate on its own to justify its existence. This film does none of that and it will be
forgotten like most blockbuster films while the original films will still be
looked upon and enjoyed for years to come.
