Who would have thought that in 2022 one of the most controversial films I would have given an opinion about was an all-female-lead remake of 1984’s Ghostbusters? But this is the world we live in nowadays. So let us start with a concise summary, Ghostbusters (2016) is nowhere near as awful as people made out six years ago and ever since. It is entertaining enough. It is not a great film and so flawed it could open a shop to sell the excess flaws it has but equally it has not precipitated the end of the world and Leslie Jones is not the Devil Incarnate.
It is fair to question the wisdom of remaking the original Ghostbusters, but it is likewise fair not to judge it on a film that was 32 years old and viewed through the prism of youth and in various people’s cases childhood. What you remember then and what occurs now are not only different countries but different planets. Clearly people clearly cannot let go of the past and have not really grown up.
Having said this, I am not going to be the champion of Feig’s Ghostbusters either. Using all female leads is well-intentioned and actually a promising idea but it is executed poorly. The main problem? This brings nothing new to the story, other than gender. That is it. If we are going to champion female actors and make films for them, and we should, there is plenty of room in the world of filmmaking, give them something to work with, give them a distinctive voice, say this is what women bring to this world. Too many times, with the best intentions I am sure, producers, writers, directors, even the actors themselves look at a story or film and just replace all the male leads with female leads, put a reference to tampons or other ‘women thing’ in and say, ‘job done’. It is not, it is lazy thinking, pat and doing a huge disservice.
Herein lies the rub, Ghostbusters is a giant Saturday Night Live sketch, with female members of that cast, and somehow what could be a strong point is fumbled. Kirsten Wiig is a talented actor nowadays and can play acomedy lead with her eyes closed is given the most infuriating ‘written by a computer’ nerdy strait-laced role that we have all seen a million times. Bland and too frightened to have her own opinion, flip-flopping from point to point, just to keep ‘in’ with some unpleasant and unworthy characters within minutes of her opening scenes my eyes were rolling like the best slot-machine in the world. It actually annoyed me – it was only because it was Wiig I could stand it at all.
McCarthy is just playing the general McCarthy role, she is either submissive and awkward and wins the day, or aggressive and annoying and sort of wins the day, here she falls between two stools but like a lot of actors, both male and female, an overall role or character is found that makes them wealthy and famous and then they get trapped into it, although I believe McCarthy has enough clout to break this mould and is at least trying to with some of her other work, but here it is familiar and although there are laughs, ultimately it is a bit boring. McKinnon who has always played her screen roles turned up to twelve is not reigned in at all by Feig and overacts and gurns so much that nothing she does is funny. It reminded me of the excited and overenthusiastic 7-year-old at a school play.
This brings us to Leslie Jones. What on earth did she do in this film that produced such vitriol and let us face it downright evil when the film was made and shown on the big screen? Having watched the film and the other performances as listed above I can only honestly presume it is because she is black and no other reason. Okay the role is standard again, the sassy black women working in a rough area of New York – another eye-roller – but Jones works as well with the limited material she had. In fact, out of the four main characters on show Patty Tolan is the one that I took a shine to more than the others. Even if the performance could have been polished a bit more we are talking about a film that would use up a lot of Duraglit for every aspect of it.
Having bogged myself down on the problems with the main leads this leaves only a little to be said about the actual story. Considering the extended version of this Ghostbusters is well over 2 hours long we have no real character development and just seem to pop onto CGI ghost set piece to the next set piece. I still could not really work out what suitably weird and creepy villain Rowan North [Neil Casey] was trying to do and in the end gave up trying to figure it out. Watch the ghostly stuff and laugh at any funny bits. This is how you spend your time but it does not necessarily make a good film.
Chris Hemsworth as the dim secretary, I see what you did there writers, is fun for a few minutes but even though his role is pivotal, it is too over the top and too silly, although you do laugh when he does really dumb things.
The special effects, criticised in some quarters, look fine on my big TV screen, and the locations and set pieces all fitted well and looked good but in the end the tale was too lite and brought nothing new to the world of Ghostbusters. I was hoping we would move on tell a different tale not more of the same but stirred counterclockwise.
A good opportunity missed, but I did not get angry or want to kill anyone because I saw the film and I did laugh during the running time.
People need to calm down about these types of films, honestly.
Review by DeletedBlockedParent2022-03-18T09:58:22Z
Who would have thought that in 2022 one of the most controversial films I would have given an opinion about was an all-female-lead remake of 1984’s Ghostbusters? But this is the world we live in nowadays. So let us start with a concise summary, Ghostbusters (2016) is nowhere near as awful as people made out six years ago and ever since. It is entertaining enough. It is not a great film and so flawed it could open a shop to sell the excess flaws it has but equally it has not precipitated the end of the world and Leslie Jones is not the Devil Incarnate.
It is fair to question the wisdom of remaking the original Ghostbusters, but it is likewise fair not to judge it on a film that was 32 years old and viewed through the prism of youth and in various people’s cases childhood. What you remember then and what occurs now are not only different countries but different planets. Clearly people clearly cannot let go of the past and have not really grown up.
Having said this, I am not going to be the champion of Feig’s Ghostbusters either. Using all female leads is well-intentioned and actually a promising idea but it is executed poorly. The main problem? This brings nothing new to the story, other than gender. That is it. If we are going to champion female actors and make films for them, and we should, there is plenty of room in the world of filmmaking, give them something to work with, give them a distinctive voice, say this is what women bring to this world. Too many times, with the best intentions I am sure, producers, writers, directors, even the actors themselves look at a story or film and just replace all the male leads with female leads, put a reference to tampons or other ‘women thing’ in and say, ‘job done’. It is not, it is lazy thinking, pat and doing a huge disservice.
Herein lies the rub, Ghostbusters is a giant Saturday Night Live sketch, with female members of that cast, and somehow what could be a strong point is fumbled. Kirsten Wiig is a talented actor nowadays and can play acomedy lead with her eyes closed is given the most infuriating ‘written by a computer’ nerdy strait-laced role that we have all seen a million times. Bland and too frightened to have her own opinion, flip-flopping from point to point, just to keep ‘in’ with some unpleasant and unworthy characters within minutes of her opening scenes my eyes were rolling like the best slot-machine in the world. It actually annoyed me – it was only because it was Wiig I could stand it at all.
McCarthy is just playing the general McCarthy role, she is either submissive and awkward and wins the day, or aggressive and annoying and sort of wins the day, here she falls between two stools but like a lot of actors, both male and female, an overall role or character is found that makes them wealthy and famous and then they get trapped into it, although I believe McCarthy has enough clout to break this mould and is at least trying to with some of her other work, but here it is familiar and although there are laughs, ultimately it is a bit boring. McKinnon who has always played her screen roles turned up to twelve is not reigned in at all by Feig and overacts and gurns so much that nothing she does is funny. It reminded me of the excited and overenthusiastic 7-year-old at a school play.
This brings us to Leslie Jones. What on earth did she do in this film that produced such vitriol and let us face it downright evil when the film was made and shown on the big screen? Having watched the film and the other performances as listed above I can only honestly presume it is because she is black and no other reason. Okay the role is standard again, the sassy black women working in a rough area of New York – another eye-roller – but Jones works as well with the limited material she had. In fact, out of the four main characters on show Patty Tolan is the one that I took a shine to more than the others. Even if the performance could have been polished a bit more we are talking about a film that would use up a lot of Duraglit for every aspect of it.
Having bogged myself down on the problems with the main leads this leaves only a little to be said about the actual story. Considering the extended version of this Ghostbusters is well over 2 hours long we have no real character development and just seem to pop onto CGI ghost set piece to the next set piece. I still could not really work out what suitably weird and creepy villain Rowan North [Neil Casey] was trying to do and in the end gave up trying to figure it out. Watch the ghostly stuff and laugh at any funny bits. This is how you spend your time but it does not necessarily make a good film.
Chris Hemsworth as the dim secretary, I see what you did there writers, is fun for a few minutes but even though his role is pivotal, it is too over the top and too silly, although you do laugh when he does really dumb things.
The special effects, criticised in some quarters, look fine on my big TV screen, and the locations and set pieces all fitted well and looked good but in the end the tale was too lite and brought nothing new to the world of Ghostbusters. I was hoping we would move on tell a different tale not more of the same but stirred counterclockwise.
A good opportunity missed, but I did not get angry or want to kill anyone because I saw the film and I did laugh during the running time.
People need to calm down about these types of films, honestly.