Paul Feig’s “Ghostbusters” remake has been a lightning rod
for controversy since it was announced a couple of years ago that the picture would feature an all-female cast. Though the living cast members of the original 1984 film have given their
blessing to this project and have even appeared in in the picture as bit parts, for
some, this has been the straw that breaks the back of fan-culture when it comes
to remaking their favorite nerd properties from the 80s. This internet
outrage has also caught the attention of a less than savory flavor of
he-man-women-haters and racists who’ve used the film as a soapbox to attack these
actresses as well as feminism as a whole, which has then forced the media into siding
with Feig and his project in hopes to proportionately counter the negative online buzz.
What does any of this have to do with the movie, you might ask, not very
much at all.
Like most classics that we now take granted now, the
original “Ghostbusters” was a film that, on paper, shouldn’t have worked. It’s
an absurd premise that’s actually taken semi-seriously and features a cast of
television comedians playing doctors and scientists. It also made allusions to the heroes’
interests in the occult, smack-dab in the middle of America’s satanic panic, and the screenplay’s structure is a more loosely accumulative than it is classically
three-act. This remake irons out all of
those kinks and idiosyncrasies for something that is unsurprisingly more safe
and centered around a series of jokes and premises rather than scenes.
Like the original, this film is also comprised of actors mined from Saturday
Night Live such as Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon, as well as Feig’s muse
Melissa McCarthy. Wiig plays Erin Gilbert, an uptight physicist who's lost
her tenure at the university that employed her when a video is leaked that connects
her with past interests in paranormal study. She’s then reunited with her
former partner in crime Abby (McCarthy) and Abby's zany lab assistant Jillian
(McKinnon). With nowhere to go but up
the group moves their headquarters to the attic of a Chinese restaurant in New
York where they up shop as a ghost removal service. Later they enlist the help of
a hunky but flighty receptionist named Kevin (Chris Hemsworth), as well as
Metro worker named Patty (Jones) who’s been witnessing strange things in the
underground tunnels.
There are plenty of nods and winks to the 1984 predecessor but
the majority of the plot elements here are conceived from a much less specific place
and the jokes are based more on visual gags and punch-lines than they are on character. Wiig is a passive, bland lead, McCarthy simmers her wild comedic
persona to blend into the ensemble and its Jones and McKinnon who provide the
films hardiest chuckles, making broader, wilder character choices. Hemsworth isn't given a lot to do but he's game to play an empty-headed receptionist and has a few funny moments of his
own. Still, the movie never really takes off like it should and the plot elements
never coalesces into something I could comfortably call a story. Like Feig’s
previous work (“Spy,” “Bridesmaids”) this movie is based around key comedic
set-pieces and conversational dialogue, which is then restricted by many complicated special
effects and a PG-13 rating that doesn't seem to suit this cast or this director.
As a story, this “Ghostbusters” doesn’t have the mythic complexity
or the same sense of character history that its source material was able to weave
into the narrative and as a comedy I can’t say that laughed as much as I wanted
to. I enjoy the neon look of the special effects and some of the new gadgets
are silly and exuberant in a Saturday morning cartoon sort-of way, but even if
we are only comparing this to previous Feig comedies this would still rank pretty
low. My childhood is still intact and the female cast doesn’t threaten my
masculinity--nor does it subvert anything as a political gesture--but this remake's screenplay is noticeably lazy and I’d be lying if said I found this effort to be a satisfying or substantive movie going experience.
Grade: C-
Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal - July/2016
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