Ghostbusters: 21 WTF Moments In The Female Remake

It goes without saying that the new Ghostbusters film is a divisive thing. Even among the people who actually bothered to go and see it before castigating it as a feminazi, childhood-ruining exercise in man-hating, the reactions have been very split.

It was always inevitable: as soon as the angry fanboys turned the film into a lightning rod for their distasteful agenda (some propelled by the perceived sanctity of the original, some simply by the fact that there's loads of girls in it), critical reaction would not be able to resist addressing the stigma. Some reviews are aimed solely and squarely at denouncing those pre-release assumptions, others at the other extreme end have used them as a "told you so" rallying point. But at least the film is being talked about enough to ensure a sequel can address some of the glaring issues in there.

And believe me, there are lots of them. Not only that, but the film packs in some seriously odd, distracting decisions and weird moments that are sure to leave even the most ardently positive reviewers somewhat confused. And inevitably, it's extremely valuable to show those moments off in all their glory.

Here are the biggest WTF moments in Paul Feig's reboot...

Now, a lot has been said about Paul Feig's decision to reboot rather than make a continuation of the same Ghostbusters timeline as the original. Even up until the film screening it wasn't entirely clear what was happening, given the first trailer's "30 years ago..." shtick. But to have the new film completely rewrite history so that the first Ghostbusters film never happened is just ridiculous, and it was still a major shock.

Why not have this be a legacy film, with the remaining Ghostbusters passing the torch. It might have drawn too close a parallel, but the film is absolutely packed with references back to the original film, so it's not like they resisted direct comparison. All that meant is that the opportunity to give the new generation some link to the old (whether just replacing them or being related), was almost provocatively ignored. Despite the fact that Holtzmann looks like Egon Spengler, acts like Spengler and Janine combined and would have been perfect as their daughter.

There's even a veiled allusion to the continuity - about the cycle of people experiencing ghosts and then forgetting for decades: that could very easily have been a continuation of the idea that the Ghostbusters went from heroes to almost forgotten between the first two movies.

But no, instead, they reset to zero, missed a lot of great opportunities but STILL shoe-horned in a load of fan service to make sure you absolutely couldn't stop comparing the two.