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Ghostbusters, or Ghostbusters: Answer the Call as it’s dubbed during the end credits, is much better than the loud, annoying crybabies would have you believe. Much like the original, this spin on the material is a herky-jerky ride between improve comedy and jump-scares. When it works, it’s very funny, but when it doesn’t, it’s a little long and too enamored with the source material for its own good.
You know when Ghostbusters is at its most fun? When it merely points at a camera at its four strong leading comediennes and lets them riff off of each other. Granted, without a straight man, these scenes sometimes play out as a live-action cartoon, but the commitment that Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones bring to their roles goes a long way towards making the whole thing charming. The disparate problems of their personalities clashing is the foundation of a lot of hangout comedy, and Ghostbusters does this material well.
Where it stumbles is in the more frequent dispersal of its high-concept plot mechanics, and finding a meeting ground between the ghosts being frightening and the guffaws they must also elicit. The actual nature of going about to busting ghosts grinds the narrative to a screeching halt, with many narrative (forgive the unintentional pun) dead spots. Our MRA-style villain is a smart choice (especially given the man-baby reaction to the very existence of this film), but he doesn’t make much of an impression either way except as a smart concept with a humdrum execution.
Once he releases all hell, the film switches into full-on action movie spectacle. The sight of McKinnon’s character licking her plasma guns and kicking ass is a thrilling bit of a female character taking the major action hero position, made all the better by McKinnon’s oddball character being the general scene-stealer throughout. The only problem here is that the special effects are not up to snuff, with many of the ghosts and ghoulies looking like obviously artificial creations completely lacking in scares and unbelievable as being in the same frame as our heroines. But it’s still a riot to watch the four of them kick ass and break down the doors to the “boys club” of summer blockbusters.
The lowest factor is the fealty that’s paid to the original players, dripped out in a series of winking cameos with many of them repeating verbatim lines from the original that they made famous. It consistently proves a distraction when they make Annie Potts answering a phone with “what do you want?” or Dan Aykroyd drop “I ain’t afraid of no ghost,” but is noticeably better when it’s Sigourney Weaver or Bill Murray in roles completely unrelated to their originals but better woven into the narrative. This comes to a head in the climax, which feels an awful lot like a complete re-do of the originals with an appearance of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and the original logo ascending to the big bad kaiju.
For all of these problems, I still think the negative reaction to this film is unwarranted. It’s charming in spots, funny in many of them, and blessed with a trio of lead performances that make it worth watching (McKinnon’s puckish tech-nerd, Leslie Jones’ amateur historian whose smarts allow her to keep up with the three degreed scientists, and Chris Hemsworth, most shockingly, deftly playing a gorgeous air-headed bimbo). Two hours is about thirty minutes too long to tell this story, but it’s still a chance to watch four funny women improving off of each other, building a believable comradery, and being surprisingly touching in spots. Let’s stop pretending the original is some golden calf of cinematic arts and just enjoy this reworking for what it is, imperfect but a pleasant and enjoyable way to spend two hours with a major film headlined by four women. That’s a cause for celebration.
