Ghostbusters (2016) review

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

Spy review

Melissa McCarthy stars in Paul Feig’s new action-comedy “Spy” and unbelievably they turn out one of their strongest collaborations yet. I say unbelievable because McCarthy’s post “Bridesmaids” career has been a bit hit or miss with successes like Feig’s cop-comedy follow-up “The Heat” and commercial and critical flops like last year’s “Tammy,” an awkwardly pitched passion project co-written by the actress and her husband.  But what makes “Spy” mostly work is that it knows that McCarthy is an actor’s booster-pack. Having worked for years on television’s “Gilmore Girls” she understands scene dynamics and how to play off of her costars in a way that makes her look good and them look better.

McCarthy plays Susan Cooper, the eyes and ears of a suave CIA operative named Bradley Fine (Jude Law). While he’s sneaking around undercover, Susan, who secretly carries a school-girl crush on the agent, tells him how to get in and out of sticky situations via headphone microphone on her computer screen, miles away in a safe rodent-infested office. After Fine is taken out of commission and it is revealed that his killer Rayna Boyanov (Rose Byrne) is hunting other known operatives, Susan’s inconspicuous demeanor and her lack of field experiences makes her the ideal candidate to track down the whereabouts of a dangerous arms dealer named Sergio De Luca (Bobby Cannavalle).

Though McCarthy is the only actor featured on all the posters and the marketing materials mostly show her undercover as an elderly woman in a curly wig and giant glasses, this is not a “Big Mamas House” styled, lazy, costume-comedy. The scenes of her in frump-drag are minimal and the comedy generally comes from the conversational, matter-of-fact riffing performed by the eclectic cast. Jason Statham does his best work in years playing against his own stereotype as a hard-ass killer, delivering some of the strongest and funniest dialogue in the movie. Likewise, the catty exchanges between McCarthy and Byrne are bound to become meme-ready in the coming months, with a crop of shareable Youtube clips.  Allison Janney is reliable as ever as their stone-faced superior and British actress Miranda Hart is entertaining in small doses, until they begins to overuse her.

The film is quite funny, and it knows that it is, and sometimes the problem with self-referential comedies is that they can become too enamored by their own appeal. Unfortunately “Spy” sometimes suffers from the over-exploiting its best jokes. Peter Serafinowicz' horny Italian spy character who can’t keep his hands off of the annoyed protagonist is a cheap gag that never works and almost never ends as soon as it’s introduced.

Sometimes the film can’t decide when to make McCarthy the strong, capable action hero or the bumbling, flakey butt of the joke. McCarthy is game to do either to the best of her abilities, but nobody behind the camera seemed aware that these portrayals clang against each other in the context of the story.  After we’ve seen her help Jude Law through very difficult situations, later in the film there are other moments where she makes the most bone-headed choices for no discernible reason other than to activate a joke.

Nevertheless, even though “Spy” stumbles occasionally, it always managed to surprise me with sharp dialogue, great performances and a real commitment to its filmic references.

Grade: B-

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/June-2015