…What?
…It’s a movie? A
remake of the original Ghostbusters, from 1984?
Oh, that’s different!
Never mind.
Of course, the actual fuss about the new Ghostbusters film is
that it’s a remake/update of the popular comedy-adventure from thirty years ago,
with Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, Rick Moranis and
Sigourney Weaver. So what?Films have been remade since the advent of cinema. It is a common practice. In fact, Alfred Hitchcock remade his own movie from 1934, The Man Who Knew Too Much, in 1956! Other notable remakes include Cape Fear (1962)(1991); The Manchurian Candidate (1962)(2004); and Seven Samurai (1954) / The Magnificent Seven (1960) [with a third one, a remake of the 1960 version, due in September 2016). There are a plethora of other pictures remade multiple times, such as Viktor und Viktoria (1933) / First A Girl (1935) / Victor and Victoria (1957) / Victor/Victoria (1982); The Shop Around The Corner (1934) / In The Good Old Summertime (1949) / Pillow Talk (1959) / You’ve Got Mail (1998); A Star is Born (1937)(1954)(1962); and Annie (1982)(1999)(2014). And we’re not even talking about so-called reboots, as with the Batman franchise and the Star Trek franchise.
In the past, while some movie remakes have been controversial,
the discussion has ordinarily been about quality – concern that a great foreign
film will be butchered by Hollywood, for example; or reasonable questions regarding
whether the new picture will (or can) measure up to the earlier beloved edition.
But with the Ghostbusters remake (hereafter GB16), the controversy is
altogether different. There are folks out there in the social media ether upset
(without having seen the movie, of course) that anyone would have the nerve to replace
the male protagonists of the 1984 movie with women.
Women!!
Can you believe it? It’s blasphemous.
It’s an attack on men! They want to cut off our balls [can’t say that – ed.] emasculate us. This shall not
stand: Must fight back. Call them nasty names, humiliate them, threaten them!
And so on.
This attitude is just ridiculous, of course. It is misogyny
pure and simple. Most of the idiots spouting off about GB16 were in diapers or
not yet born when GB84 came out. But the
anti-GB16 campaign has been so vicious that it has hurt people, including, most prominently, Leslie
Jones, one of the stars of GB16, who has the misfortune of being not just
female, but African-American as well. And how is it we still have virulent
gender-based hate sixteen years into the twenty-first century?
What about the movie itself? Is it any good? And how
does it compare to the original?
Yes it’s good. It’s equal parts clever, witty, and slapstick
funny, while also being a pretty decent light adventure story. In these
respects, it is quite similar to and comparable in quality with the original
Ghostbusters (which I’ll call GB84 from now on). GB16 also allows us to watch and
vicariously participate as the individual members of the Ghostbusters partnership
bond together and become a team – a quality not particularly noticeable in
GB84. The stories in both are quite
similar, but not the same. For example, GB16 does not start in the library, but
rather on a tour of the (fictional) supposedly haunted Aldritch Mansion in New
York.
Not surprisingly, special effects are much better in 2016
than they were in 1984. If you don’t believe me, go back and re-watch GB84, and
you can see for yourself. Speaking of which, GB16 tries a little too hard with
its over-the-top, razzle-dazzle ending – a trait it shares with virtually all
sci-fi films and most adventure-thrillers nowadays. Not so much as to ruin the
good will built up over the first ninety minutes, however. Even in its cheesy
excess, GB16 remains funny throughout for the most part. I saw it in 3D, which
was nice but not at all essential.
Where GB16 suffers in comparison with its predecessor is
that it does not star Bill Murray, the standout performer in GB84 by a mile.
Murray, playing cheesy pseudo-suave Dr. Peter Venkman, almost single handedly
created the campy mood of GB84. With his aggressive nonchalance, he appears to
be “standing outside the frame”, as Variety’s Owen Glieberman puts it, and this
makes Murray the funniest part of the original picture. There is no one and
nothing like him in the cast of GB16. (Actually, in an homage to the first
film, Murray and the other surviving principals of GB84 each have small and/or
cameo roles in the new movie – but they do not play their former characters.)
GB16 stars Kristen Wiig (SNL,
Bridesmaids [2011]), Melissa McCarthy (The Heat [2013], Spies
[2015]), Kate McKinnon (SNL) and
Leslie Jones (SNL) as the
Ghostbusters team. Wiig plays Erin, a scientist hoping for tenure at Columbia,
who has buried her youthful fascination with ghosts and paranormal activity in
favor of “hard” physics, only to have her past thrown in her face at the most
inopportune time by her former best friend and co-enthusiast Abby (McCarthy).
Erin goes to confront Abby, but gets caught up in the investigation of a ghost
sighting and is soon hooked again. McCarthy, much like Aykroyd in GB84, does fine
but plays it relatively straight in this film – somewhat of a waste considering
her considerable comic chops. Hopefully this will be remedied in the likely
sequel.
Abby’s assistant is Jillian (McKinnon), a brilliant, quite
geeky engineer who, like Harold Ramos’ Egon Spengler in GB84, fulfills a techie
role - rather like Q in the James Bond franchise except that Jillion (like Egon,
and unlike Q) is a full member of the team and participates in their
adventures. Mckinnon really shines, and is a highlight of GB16. Filling out the
team is Patty (Jones), a NY Subway worker who has a paranormal encounter and because
she can provide a car for the ghostbusters, becomes the fourth member of the
team. (It has been noticed that this is an unfortunate case of stereotyping – as
in GB84, the Black character is the only non-scientist in the group. However,
unlike Ernie Hudson’s character in the earlier movie, Jones is very much a full
member of the team and one of the funniest.)
Other cast members include Chris Hemsworth (The Avengers
[2012], Snow White and the Huntsman [2012]), Zach Woods (In The Loop
[2009], Silicon Valley) and Charles
Dance (The Jewel in the Crown [1984], The Imitation Game [2014], Game of Thrones).
A strength of GB16 is that it treats its women stars as
actual people in their own right – specifically people with a job to do. Romance
is not a plot element, looking hot is not a character trait, and no one is
trying to hook up with a man (or another woman). Wiig’s character does swoon a
bit for the hunky mail secretary, Kevin (Hemsworth) – but only in the interest
of comedy, and nothing comes of it. Speaking of which, the Kevin character is a
hoot – gorgeous and studly (he plays Thor in Marvel’s Avengers series) but
thick as a brick; it’s a nice reversal and sendup of the dumb bimbo trope –
fair play in my opinion. The movie is rated PG-13.
Whether you will love or just like GB16 may depend on the
circumstances of your viewing. I’ve seen it twice, once in an afternoon
screening with a half full house and a pretty dead audience. I liked it okay, and
appreciated a lot of the jokes without actually laughing aloud. My second viewing was on a weekend evening
with an engaged audience that started laughing at all the right places and
which increased my amusement and enjoyment significantly. (This is why we have
laugh-tracks, folks – laughter is contagious.)
Overall, this may not be a classic, but it’s a very
enjoyable summer entertainment flick.
1 hour 56 minutes.
In wide release.
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