Ghostbusters Review - Who Ya Gonna Call? These Guys, Actually!

Rating: ★★★

Paul Feig's Ghostbusters is good. It's funny (Chris Hemsworth is the MVP as dumb receptionist Kevin), creepy (the opening gives nice, light chills) and has some fittingly vibrant action. It's an entertaining movie that despite some pretty major storytelling issues gets by thanks to an overwhelming sense of fun, a unique approach to the reboot enterprise and strong gender thematic grounding.

But you can't say that. You have to open any review of the all-female Ghostbusters talking about the massive online backlash-cum-hate-campaign that's exploded around the project. First anti-feminists and die-hard Ghostbusters fans who didn't realise they still had copies of the originals despised a remake instead of a male-fronted narrative continuation, but then the admittedly shoddy marketing campaign hit, with down-votes and spoilers galore, and the film became the punching bag of summer 2016. I've expressed my views on all this before and don't feel the need to repeat them here (in short, it feels incredibly misguided, especially when a much worse-looking remake of a film that won 11 Oscars hits only a month after), mainly because, quite simply, it no longer matters. Haters gonna hate, but if you're not intrinsically against a Ghostbusters led by women (or anyone who isn’t the original cast), then you'll have fun with this.

Although, to be fair, they have kinda asked for some fireworks. Not only are Mmes Wiig, McCarthy, McKinnon and Jones gender-swapped castings, but the movie is heavily concerned with sexual politics and the place of women in modern society, specifically how they’re treated in traditionally male professions, such as science and fronting summer blockbusters. Whether it was steered into after the online hate is something to be dissected down the line, but on top of being a key plot point, there’s more female-power jokes than it’d be possible to list and plentiful cases of the team exclaiming about how they’re dismissed for no real reason. All this comes in addition the the director’s trademark lewd female comedy, which works similar to Bridesmaids thanks to this more serious backing.

If you're thinking this is just for SJWs though, you’re way wrong - fitting of being a family blockbuster, this is much more universal. Kristen Wiig's Erin Gilbert was bullied at school for believing in ghosts, something that looms over her academic career and eventually pulls her back into the world of the paranormal where her previous idiosyncrasies are an asset. In contrast, the villain was likewise bullied, but dwells on it and uses it to power his vendetta against the entire living plane. The distinction isn't that he has balls (although that does form the part of a neat action beat), but how they chose to combat their troubled childhoods. The film's about growing up a geek and how, while there’s those who will become worse than those who picked on them, it’s possible to find acceptance and success in what you love (again, very apt given the hate).

There's something funny about this. Many dismissed Ghostbusters as just another cash-in remake where established names made a quick buck attaching their names to an existing IP, but this pointed message shows there's a real, forward-thinking purpose to restarting this franchise at this time with this cast.

Heck, even without that movie-defining subtext, this is different to your standard reboot. Most iconic series are now getting legacy-quels of varying effectiveness, but Ghostbusters has gone a different route; while plot-wise this is remake, the tone is overridden with a nostalgic irreverence and push to use what you know to make something different. It’s a remix, but the good kind that’ll get played to the point where it can be appreciated separate to what started it. There’s cameos galore and every iconic line from the original gets namechecked, but it's all in a subversive, standalone manner.

It’s a risky approach, one that could have been cloying (and the film even seems to be going that way when the camera lingers on a bust of Harold Ramis at the start), but it soon becomes clear all that is accentuation, a purposeful nudge nudge that pushes your enjoyment along rather than pulling you out. The only thing that doesn’t work is Slimer, who is obnoxious iconography that clashes with the tone of the film, but his part is small enough it’s something ignorable.

For the second half of the review, click next.