MOVIE REVIEW: Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters (2016)

Comedy, Sci-Fi, Fantasy

Directed By: Paul Feig

Let's get this part out of the way fast. If you have bought into the immature and disgusting hate surrounding this film for the better part of the past year, just stop reading now because this movie isn't, and never was, for you. That is the biggest mistake any fan over the age of 21 made when they first heard of this movie, they thought it was for them and them alone. When Sony made the bold decision to reboot the beloved Ghostbusters franchise, and with an all women cast, they did it to capture a whole new audience of fans. Where the motives clearly financial? obviously, but for one of the first times in Hollywood history those money driven motives put four kick-ass, hilarious women front and center in one of the most iconic properties of all-time, and that is really freaking cool if you ask me. 

Even better, they went and got one of the best comedy writer/directors working in the business today, Paul Feig. For a while it was unclear whether or not Feig's movie was going to be a sequel or a total reboot to the franchise so i'll tell you here and now that this is a total reboot of the franchise. We open on a world where ghosts are still believed to be myths and no human has ever dawned a proton pack in hopes of capturing the supernatural...yet. 

Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) and Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy) are old childhood friends who have dedicated their lives to science in order to try and prove the existence of ghosts, well, kind of. Erin has taken a "leave of absence" from the paranormal to pursue a legitimate career in physics, but when strange paranormal events start happening all around New York she finds herself back in the company of her old friend Abby as well as the brilliant engineer Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon), with full intentions of capturing a ghost. When one of their first jobs brings them together with NY subway worker Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones) they quickly find their fourth member of the team, and although she may not be a scientist she knows more about the history of NYC than the buildings themselves. Together the four become the only people in the city that can do anything to stop the horrors that await them. 

When we look at movie reboots one of the biggest aspects we examine is whether or not the film made any updates or changes to the original. A shot for shot remake is almost always a total waste of time so we hope that whoever is taking us back to a world we are already familiar with has some new tricks up their sleeve. Obviously Sony made the big change by making the leads all female, but this movie has so much more new and awesome things to offer beyond just that. From updated, and cool technology that adds a new level of ghost hunting beyond "stand still and shoot particle beam", to much scarier and better looking ghosts this film does plenty to allow it to stand on its own. 

All the new changes and additions are a refreshing change of pace for the series and help to keep the audience engaged, but it's the chemistry between our four leads that really drive this flick. Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy do a fantastic job playing weird, science geek, childhood friends who have strayed away from each other. McCarthy is actually more dialed back than usual, delivering plenty of laughs without raising her voice too much and Kristen Wiig is so wonderfully charming I couldn't help but smile every time she was on screen. Leslie Jones does what she does best and brings tons of raucous laughs throughout and more than proves why her character deserves to bust ghosts along these scientists.

Then there is Kate McKinnon's Jillian Holtzmann, go see this movie if only to see Kate McKinnon as Jillian Holtzmann. She has brought to life one of the wackiest, boldest, and downright awesome movie characters maybe ever. Playing the brilliant nuclear engineer she is the one creating and designing all of their awesome toys and let me tell you, her excitement for these things is the stuff dreams are made of. It appears Feig just let her do her thing this entire film and it translates to one of the most lovable, badass movie characters I've ever seen. Oh yeah and Chris hemsworth shows up in some scenes and makes you piss your pants laughing, so there's that to look forward too as well. Unfortunately the cameo's of our old-time favorites don't stack up as well, I guess that's what fan service gets you.

Can this ever match the magic of the original film? probably not, but that's just because we aren't adolescents anymore. It's near impossible to recapture a magic we felt as children twenty or thirty years later, but I can tell you this will be a whole new kind of magic for an entirely new generation. What does it matter what a bunch of thirty something dudes think of a movie when it will capture the imagination of countless young children in ways we could only dream of? I can only hope we get at least one more of these movies so these ladies can actually try and bring together a worthwhile Ghostbusters sequel (Ghostbusters II is not good) and also because I just like to see fun movies. In a year of quite a few lackluster franchise films I am shocked this is the one getting all of the vitriolic hate when it's such a happy movie. 

As always, thanks for reading and I am Zach Who Watches Movies. You can find me anytime on twitter @ZachWWMovies, smell ya later!