Can four smart, funny women save the Big Apple and the world from a Ghost Apocalypse? The controversy over casting Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones to don the jumpsuits and proton packs is a non-issue once you see this film. We found them all more than capable of taking on the action as well as the comedy. It just could have been put together and paced better, but it\u2019s still fun, especially if you see it with a big audience.<\/p>\n
Director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, Heat)<\/span>\u00a0and writing partner Katie Dippold have stuck to the original concept, only flipping the gender switch. As Feig describes it, the concept is quite simple. It\u2019s about four smart outsiders who believe in ghosts. The rest of the world ridicules them until the ghosts go on a rampage and these apparition-chasing weirdos save the world. Add jokes, familiar music and way too many special effects.<\/span><\/p>\n Wiig plays Erin Gilbert, a Columbia physics professor who only wants tenure and a cushy future. Her plans are derailed when her former best friend and fellow ghost enthusiast, Abby, (Melissa McCarthy) publicizes their old book. It\u2019s called \u201cGhosts From Our Past: Both Literally and Figuratively: The Study of the Paranormal\u201d by Erin Gilbert and Abby L. Yates (the characters named in the movie) and is for sale for real on Amazon! Nice piece of marketing. Kristen Wiig is the sedate one of the bunch. She underplayed the role so much, we kept waiting for her to break out more. She lets loose some eventually which was welcome.<\/p>\n Kate McKinnon steals every scene she\u2019s in as the genius mad-scientist Jillian Holtzman who creates all the weapons and technology to defeat the ghosts. McKinnon gets to take her role\u00a0way<\/span>\u00a0over the top so she gets more than her share of big laughs and rightfully so, especially when she pops out of nowhere with some silly line or sight gag.<\/span><\/p>\n Leslie Jones is Patty, a subway worker who joins the crew after her ghostly encounter on the tracks underground. She isn\u2019t half as out there as she usually is on SNL and we think her brand of comedy could have been used more. Maybe she could have gotten a little sexy with one of the ghosts.<\/p>\n Melissa McCarthy obviously had a lot of fun as ringleader Abby. She\u2019s running the show. McCarthy\u2019s stunt double, Luci Romberg, says Melissa is an amazing athlete who always wants to do her own stunts, like she did in\u00a0Spy<\/span>. And she does a ton of them. The only ones she doesn\u2019t do are the ones the studio won\u2019t let her.\u00a0\u00a0Melissa says how often do you get a chance to be thrown across a room. It\u2019s fun for her, she says, like getting to join the circus!<\/span><\/p>\n The comedic surprise is Chris Hemsworth\u2019s blonde, male bimbo turn as Kevin, the Ghostbusters\u2019 receptionist. Feig related how Hemsworth went off book and improvised a lot of his big interview scene with McCarthy and Wiig. He had them laughing so hard they had to keep shooting takes over and over again. And Yes, of course, you will get to see\u00a0Thor\u00a0<\/span>with his shirt off and bust some moves when you least expect it.<\/span><\/p>\n This new\u00a0Ghostbusters<\/span>\u00a0also pays homage to it\u2019s roots. Most of the original cast makes cameos, unrelated to their characters from the 1984 film. Even the late Harold Ramis (to whom the film is dedicated) is worked into a scene. Rick Moranis, who hasn\u2019t acted in 10 years, and is concentrating more on a music career, turned down the offer to appear. But you will see Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts and Sigourney Weaver. The audience at our screening cheered each appearance, but most of the \u201cold timers\u201d didn\u2019t appear anxious to spend any more time on screen than their few seconds.<\/span><\/p>\n The music is full of energy. You will hear strains of the Ray Parker Jr. theme which has become as iconic as the 80\u2019s movie itself. The new theme \u201cGhostbusters (I\u2019m Not Afraid)\u201d by Fall Out Boy and Missy Elliott doesn\u2019t come anywhere near the original. The hook just isn\u2019t memorable and Ray Parker Jr. agrees that the hip-hop, rap style is like everything else out there. He says he wished that someone asked his advice before putting it out there. He\u2019s right.<\/p>\n The centerpiece of a Summer Blockbuster is the special effects. Once gain, the original\u00a0Ghostbusters<\/span>\u00a0set a standard for its time. We didn\u2019t see the effects, ghosts and explosions breaking any new ground here, but there were a lot of them. Actually too many of them. It\u2019s your basic destroy Manhattan scenario you\u2019ve seen in many other blockbuster action films. That\u2019s not to say there isn\u2019t plenty of action, bizarre ghoulish apparitions and whiz bang CGI. Director Feig even brings back a few of the classic Ghosts from 1984 like the Sta-Puff Man and that bad greenie, Slimer.\u00a0\u00a0Both were cheered when they appeared.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s interesting to note that Feig decided to put real actors in full ghost make-up and costume with LED light suits. He believes that for comedy to work, actors need to interact to get real reactions and better laughs. So there is a minimum of acting in front of a plain green screen with an \u201cX\u201d where the actor is supposed to focus attention. He gets them right in there.<\/p>\n Is this worth your bucks? Simple answer is yes. This is a movie that\u2019s much more fun to watch with a big audience reacting to comedy, the cameos and the over-all vibe. The plot, frankly, is weak and much of the film feels like SNL sketches. After all, this cast looks like an SNL reunion with Wiig,McKinnon, Jones, Cecily Strong, Murray, Aykroyd.<\/p>\n There are long stretches in the middle section of the film that lag. The climactic rescue and explosion didn\u2019t bring anybody out of their seats. This movie which cost $150 million to make, has to appeal to a wide demographic, so the scary moments aren\u2019t too scary and humor can\u2019t get too raunchy. They take the safe, middle-of-the-road course.<\/p>\n Make sure to stay to the very end of the credits which won\u2019t be hard to do since the credits and the extra content are just as entertaining, if not more, than the movie itself. Chris Hemsworth gets his due late in this game. This reboot of the 1984 revered classic isn\u2019t great, but we think it\u2019s good enough to deserve a sequel and there\u2019s a hint that it could be coming. These days that pretty much is all that matters in the movie biz. If the box office is big enough, these ghostbusters may be back to haunt you.<\/p>\n Columbia\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 116 Minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 PG-13\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Reviewed July 15, 2016<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Can four smart, funny women save the Big Apple and the world from a Ghost Apocalypse? The controversy over casting Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones to don the jumpsuits and proton packs is a non-issue once you see this film. We found them all more than capable of taking on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2418,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416\/revisions\/2418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}