Ghostbusters (2016)

I don't normally worry when Hollywood cranks out a new remake of an old classic. I've seen enough good ones over the years that the idea doesn't bug me that much. But then I heard that Sony would be remaking Ghostbusters and my heart sank. The original movie is one of my favorite movies of all time, and I'd gotten my hopes up that one day we'd see them return in Ghostbusters III for one last ride into the sunset. Even after Harold Ramis died in 2014, I still clutched onto that belief.

But a remake? Really?! Why not just follow what Star Wars: The Force Awakens did and give us a sequel that revives the series and has the old cast hand the torch over to a new one? The idea of remaking Ghostbusters hasn't endeared itself to me at all, and before its release, the bits and pieces of the movie I'd seen as part of its promotional campaign were painfully unfunny. But I felt that I owed it to myself to see it anyway, to give it a chance and see if my preconceived notions were incorrect. And you know what? I didn't hate it. It's far, far from perfect... but I didn't hate it.

Years ago, Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) and Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy) wrote a book that posited that ghosts just might actually exist. The book was a big fat flop, and an embarrassed Erin distanced herself from both it and Abby. Their lives take far different paths as time passes. Abby runs a parapsychology lab at a low-rent technical college, assisted by her rather kooky associate Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon), while Erin is a respected physics professor at Columbia University and is desperate to put her past behind her. But she quickly learns that the past can have a bad habit of encroaching on the present.

Erin is approached by someone asking her to look into a potential haunting at a local museum, producing a copy of she and Abby's book when she denies knowing anything about the paranormal. She is horrified to discover that Abby has had the book republished, something that threatens both her reputation and career. Erin approaches Abby and demands she stop selling it, but when she mentions the museum haunting, Abby and Holtzmann insist on looking into it and drag a reluctant Abby along for the ride.

They do encounter an actual ghost at the mansion, but embarrassing footage of their investigation goes viral after Abby posts it on YouTube and all three are fired from their jobs. Erin, Abby, and Holtzmann take this as an opportunity to become professional paranormal investigators. Their business mostly draws out kooks and pranksters at first, and their dimwitted receptionist Kevin (Chris Hemsworth) isn't much help either. But they're soon contacted by Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones), a subway booth attendant who swears she saw a ghost in one of the terminals and wants them to investigate.

Their journey into the subway doesn't quite go exactly as planned, but it gives them the confidence to graduate from paranormal investigators to paranormal exterminators. Bringing Patty aboard as the fourth member of their team and armed with equipment built by Holtzmann, their public profile begins to rise and they adopt the name the media had given them, "the Ghostbusters." A sudden spike in supernatural activity leads the team to a strange little man named Rowan North (Neil Casey). An occult-obsessed weirdo, Rowan has sworn to completely demolish the barrier between the living world and the afterlife and allow untold scores of ghosts into our plane of existence. He's dangerously close to accomplishing that goal, and it's up to the Ghostbusters to stop him.

As I entered the theater to see this new iteration of the Ghostbusters franchise, a feeling of dread followed me. The advertising campaign hadn't done much to sell me on this new movie, the online arguments are frustratingly annoying, and I honestly haven't enjoyed what little I've seen of Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy in the past. (Honestly, I can only ever think of the dreadfully unfunny "Gilly" sketches from Saturday Night Live whenever I see Wiig in anything.)

But I thought to myself, "what if I had completely misjudged it?" And it turns out that I had, to a degree. The Ghostbusters remake isn't a particularly good movie, but it's got quite a few moments that are a lot of fun. Even at its absolute worst, I found it to still be an entertaining diversion that isn't a totally bad way to kill two hours of your time.

In the director's chair is Paul Feig, whose prior work I honestly haven't seen. Yeah, I know Bridesmaids was a huge smash hit and won all kinds of awards, and The Heat and Spy were no slouches at the box office either. But none of those movies actually appealed to me. They just didn't look like anything that would be up my alley, y'know? However, I wouldn't dare miss a new Ghostbusters movie, so I was went into the movie willing to give Feig a chance. Strictly speaking about his direction, Feig's work is serviceable, I guess. It gets the job done, but it isn't anything special. He puts the movie's 3D effects to good use,  throwing slime and lasers beyond the edges of the frame.

But past that, there isn't really a whole lot to talk about. The cinematography feels flat in the scenes that don't involve flinging things at the audience in 3D and the pacing is inconsistent, bouncing back and forth between "energetic" and "dull" like a ping pong ball at high speed. The movie doesn't feel big, but more like it's just kinda there.

I really can't say much about the script either. Penned by Feig and Katie Dippold, the script is probably the movie's weakest part. The original movie was a group of comedians stuck inside a horror movie, while this is a straightforward comedy from start to finish. Some of the jokes are funny, don't get me wrong. But there are so many that fall flat, or are good for a light chuckle but aren't the hilarious zingers Feig and Dippold may have been hoping for. (Did we need that stupid running gag with Abby and her wonton soup orders?)

I'm also curious why Feig and Dippold felt the need to tell us every tiny little detail about how the Ghostbusters got started. We didn't need to see how they built their proton packs, or where their logo and jumpsuits came from. And could the movie's villain have been any more lame? He's so utterly forgettable that I had to Google his name since I couldn't remember it otherwise. Gozer was an ancient god of destruction, Vigo the Carpathian was the spirit of a medieval tyrant... this guy is just some dweeb who wants to let ghosts take over New York City because he was picked on growing up. Was that really the best Feig and Dippold could come up with?

I said earlier that I enjoyed the movie, even though I haven't had a lot of nice things to say about it thus far. And that's because the thing that really drew me in was the cast. Well, the four main actresses did, anyway. The majority of the cast are forgettable, while Neil Casey is honestly not very good as our villain and Chris Hemsworth is irritating as the Ghostbusters' dimwitted secretary. Hemsworth gets a couple of chuckles here and there, but his character is written to be so painfully stupid that he starts quickly becomes annoying.

But I quite liked the four lead actresses. They're likable and engaging, with a believable chemistry between them. Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig have their moments, as does Leslie Jones, but the show is undoubtedly stolen by Kate McKinnon. I haven't watched much SNL over the last fifteen years or so, so I can't say I'm familiar with McKinnon (or Jones, for that matter). But she's absolutely the best part of the movie. McKinnon brings a madcap, energetic charm to the movie, so much so that it makes her scenes more fun than they might've been without her. McKinnon is utterly fantastic and practically carries the whole movie on her back.

Long story short, this new Ghostbusters movie isn't very good. Maybe I might've been carrying a slight bias against it since I'd wanted the old cast back in their old roles. I don't know. But that said, the new movie can certainly be enjoyable at times. And even at its worst, it's still a fun footnote in the Ghostbusters franchise. So who ya gonna call? These new four might not be your first choice, but they'll do in a pinch.

Final Rating: **½

Ghostbusters II (1989)

Without a doubt, the summer of 1989 belonged to Batman. Tim Burton's cinematic reinvention of the Dark Knight was the undisputed king of the summer blockbusters. It dominated the box office and making a killing just off the merchandising alone. But to me, there was only one movie worth seeing that summer, and it wasn't Batman... it was Ghostbusters II.

I couldn't get enough of the Ghostbusters at the time; I owned all the toys and merchandise and all that stuff, I watched the Real Ghostbusters cartoon almost religiously, and I had practically worn out my VHS copy of the first movie. So when I heard that a sequel was in the works, I was as excited as a seven-year-old boy could get. It's actually the first movie I can remember seeing in a theater, believe it or not.

But while Ghostbusters II is special to me in that aspect, time has not been as kind to it as it's been to the first movie. It's actually kinda mediocre when you compare it to its predecessor, but I believe it's still worth a watch. So let's check out why that is.

Five years have passed since the Ghostbusters saved New York City from the wrath of Gozer. However, it hasn't been a happy five years. All the collateral damage caused during the battle with Gozer led to numerous lawsuits and an injunction preventing them from catching ghosts and essentially putting them out of business.

In the time since then, the four have moved on. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) hosts a local television show where he essentially mocks guests claiming to have psychic abilities; Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) is a researcher studying behavioral sciences; and Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) runs an occult bookstore, occasionally teaming with Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) to revive the Ghostbuster name as entertainers for children's birthday parties.

But something is about to pull them all back together again. After the stroller containing her infant son Oscar (Hank and Will Deutschendorf) goes flying into the street under its own power, Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) — now a painting restorer at the Manhattan Museum of Art — seeks out her old friends in order to find out why.

The search leads Peter, Egon, and Ray to an intersection near Dana's apartment building, where, posing as city employees, they start drilling into First Avenue. Ray draws the short straw and gets lowered down into their hole, where he discovers an enormous river of pink slime flowing along the long-abandoned pneumatic railroad lines. He procures a sample of the slime, but as he's being lifted out, he accidentally kicks a power line and sends all of Manhattan into a blackout.

Thanks to this and the fact that they were digging up the street without anything so much as resembling a permit, the cops haul them in. It doesn't help them any that they had all their ghostbusting equipment in their truck, which puts them in violation of the aforementioned injunction. Peter, Egon, and Ray are sent to trial, ending up with Louis Tully (Rick Moranis) as their incompetent attorney. But they're also up against a ridiculously stern judge that is so grossly biased against them that he causes a slime sample — which had been entered as evidence — to explode and release the vindictive ghosts of two murderers that he'd sent to the electric chair years earlier. Panicking, the judge dismisses the case and rescinds the injunction, allowing Peter, Egon, and Ray to suit up and bust the ghosts.

The Ghostbusters officially reopen their business as paranormal investigators and eliminators. But as they return to their previous glory, Peter tries rekindling his past relationship with Dana while the others investigate the river of slime. Turns out that the slime is empathic, and it feeds on the emotions off those around it. They even trace the slime river to a definitive source: beneath the Manhattan Museum of Art. This is particular interest of the Ghostbusters, who have reason to believe that a painting of 16th-century Moldavian tyrant Vigo the Carpathian (Wilhelm von Homburg) that Dana had been working on may have some connection to the supernatural.

And you know what? It does have some connection to the supernatural. Turns out that Vigo's spirit is contained within the painting, and he has turned Dana's boss, Janosz Poha (Peter MacNicol), into his own personal sidekick. He also gives the possessed Janosz some directions: bring him a child, so that he may transfer his soul into it at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve and live again. And Janosz has found the perfect child: Dana's son. So you just know that the Ghostbusters and Vigo are going to have a showdown.

Ghostbusters II isn't a bad movie at all. Unfortunately, I don't believe it's as strong as the original movie. I simply got the impression that they were truing to catch lightning in a bottle a second time, and despite the movie's box office success (a worldwide gross of 215 million dollars), I don't know if I'd put it on a pedestal like its predecessor. Don't get me wrong, Ghostbusters II is entertaining. But it just feels like some of the magic was lost in the five years between the two.

 

Let's go with Ivan Reitman's direction first. Teaming with cinematographer Michael Chapman, Reitman once again crafts a movie that is visually astounding. Ghostbusters II isn't a movie that demands anything extremely flashy when it comes to direction or camerawork, but Reitman does a fantastic job in setting and keeping the movie's tone.

 

This is assisted by the musical score composed by Randy Edelman. Instead of simply reprising Elmer Bernstein's music from the first movie, Edelman goes his own way and does a great job enhancing the movie's atmosphere. Whether it be something comedic, something frightening, or something heroic, Edelman is up to task.The original songs comprising the movie's soundtrack — performed by high-profile acts like Run-DMC, Bobby Brown, Doug E. Fresh, Oingo Boingo, and Glenn Frey from the Eagles — aren't bad either, though I don't think they'd hold up outside of the context of the movie.

 

I should also compliment the visual effects created by Industrial Light & Magic. Though there is an instance or two of the effects not completely blending in with their surroundings, scenes like the Ghostbusters fighting the courthouse ghosts and the Statue of Liberty walking through Manhattan are amazingly effective in drawing the audience in. That's why ILM is the best at what they do, folks.

 

Up next is the screenplay, once again penned by Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd. Instead of being a straight comedy like it could have been, Ramis and Aykroyd instead spread the humor thinly over the movie's 108-minute running time. Doing that allows them to establish some drama, a little horror, and even some romance with the Peter/Dana subplot. It's some very good writing, but I didn't feel that the script was one of the movie's strongest elements. I can't exactly put my finger on anything specific that bothers me, but it doesn't seem as charming as Ramis and Aykroyd's script for the first movie. I wish I could say what it was bugging me so much, I really do.

Last but not least is the cast. Practically every major player from the first movie is back, and everyone does a perfect job, specifically our leads. Bill Murray, Ramis, and Aykroyd are wonderfully entertaining, having a great comedic chemistry together. Murray also has a warm, amiable chemistry with Sigourney Weaver, who turns in a fine performance as the straight man (straight woman?) to the antics of the Ghostbusters.

Unfortunately, it seems like they couldn't come up with anything for the other returning actors. Annie Potts is barely in the movie at all, while Ernie Hudson has only a handful of scenes despite being a Ghostbuster. Moranis fares the best, with a number of well-done important scenes and a funny mini-subplot with Slimer.

Of our antagonists, Peter MacNicol is the most notable, enthusiastically overacting and perhaps being more entertaining than the character should have been. Wilhelm von Homburg isn't given a whole lot to do as Vigo until the climax, and even then, his dialogue was dubbed by an uncredited Max von Sydow. However, the combination of von Homburg's intimidating presence and von Sydow's stern voice do make for quite the memorable villain.

And in an extremely minor and pretty much useless role, Kurt Fuller isn't bad as the mayor's sleazy assistant. I think the only reason the character was included in the movie was they thought the Ghostbuster-hating bureaucrat worked so well in the first movie, they'd use a similar character in the sequel. The character has no real purpose outside of just being a thorn in the side of our heroes, and the subplot where he has the Ghostbusters locked up in Bellevue's psychiatric ward seems like a whole lot of filler.

As I said in the introduction, Ghostbusters II is a special movie to me. However, that doesn't make me blind to the fact that it very nearly falls victim to a nasty case of "sequelitis." It's not as good as the first movie, but that doesn't necessarily make it a bad movie like other sequels out there. There's still a lot of good in Ghostbusters II, so I think it's worth a watch. And maybe one day, there wll be a Ghostbusters III to close out the trilogy.

Final Rating: ***

Ghostbusters (1984)

When I was a kid, it was fairly common for me to get wrapped up in whatever cartoon/toy line was hot at the time. I would get absolutely addicted. If you don't believe me, I need to let you go through the various old boxes in my attic. I still have all my old He-Man and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys up there. Each of them continue have a special nostalgic place in my heart, but one of the few fads from my youth that I never really got over was the Ghostbusters.

I was a mere two years old when the movie originally hit theaters in the summer of 1984, but I was absolutely enthralled with the cartoon that began airing Saturday mornings on ABC beginning in 1986. I had all the toys, the books, the lunchboxes, I played the video games, and I even dressed up as a Ghostbuster for Halloween one year. But it wasn't just the cartoon I loved; it was the movie as well. I absolutely wore out my copies of the movie and the soundtrack, to the point that I think my parents were getting sick of them. The movie frequently turns up on lists of the funniest movies of all time and is one of my personal favorites, so let's get to the review and find out why.

Our tale of the supernatural follows three eccentric parapsychology professors: over-enthusiastic Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), nerdy Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis), and cynical womanizer Peter Venkman (Bill Murray). Their theories regarding the existence of the supernatural and the possibility of containing them are dismissed as signs of incompetence and the trio are fired from their cushy jobs at Columbia University, despite having actual contact with a ghost. They don't let their newfound unemployment bring them down, so the three associates go into business for themselves as the Ghostbusters, New York City's only paranormal investigators and eliminators.

Though business is quite slow — practically nonexistent — for them at first, they draw the attention of Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver), whose refrigerator may or may not be a portal to some demonic otherworld. After visiting the Ghostbusters's office to ask for help, Peter is immediately smitten and takes the case. He visits her apartment and fails to find any evidence of supernatural activity, but promises to solve her problem despite making a bad impression with his flippant and flirtatious attitude.

However, Dana is almost pushed to the backburner when their first big bust pushes the Ghostbusters into the national spotlight. Everything from newspapers to political and scientific journals to talk shows and Casey Kasem's radio countdown has something to say about them. And as their business booms exponentially, the demand for their services becomes so high that they're forced to hire a fourth Ghostbuster, blue-collar Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson), to help lighten the workload.

As time goes by, it becomes apparent that foul things are afoot in Manhattan. Dana's neighbor, a nerdy accountant by the name of Louis Tully (Rick Moranis), has become possessed by an entity that refers to itself as Vinz Clortho. He eventually ends up in Egon's care, where we learn his story: Vinz is the servant of an ancient Sumerian god named Gozer, and that his role in the grand scheme of things is that he is "the Keymaster of Gozer." Once he contacts another entity named Zuul, who we're told is the Gatekeeper of Gozer, the gates to Gozer's dimension will be opened and the apocalypse will be unleashed. So as Egon is quick to surmise, getting the Keymaster and Gatekeeper together would be bad times. And just their luck, Peter accidentally discovered exactly who Zuul has possessed: Dana. What were the odds of these two living next door to one another?

But this isn't the only thing the Ghostbusters have to worry about. Their massive success has attracted the attention of EPA inspector Walter Peck (William Atherton), a ruthless bureaucrat who is convinced that the Ghostbusters are nothing more than con artists using cheap parlor tricks to swindle innocent people out of their money. After Peter blows off Peck's inquiry about the safety and legality of their containment system, Peck returns with some police, a utility worker, and a court order to cut the building's power. Despite being warned of the dire consequences, Peck gets the power shut down as he wanted.

As you may probably surmise, that's not good. The containment unit goes up like a Roman candle, releasing the massive number of ghosts imprisoned inside it and allowing them to wreak havoc upon the city. In all the confusion, Louis escapes and heads straight for Dana's apartment while Peck has the Ghostbusters for causing the explosion. That's pretty stupid, if you ask me. He's the one that pulled the plug on the thing despite being told on numerous occasions that it was a bad idea.

While stuck in a prison holding cell, the Ghostbusters get a chance to study the blueprints of Dana and Louis's apartment building in Central Park West. Turns out that an insane physician and architect by the name of Ivo Shandor deemed society "too sick to survive" after the first World War, and founded a secret society dedicated to worshipping Gozer. Shandor designed the building as an antenna to bring Gozer to our world, and his cult performed rituals on the roof with the intention of ending life as we know it. And if you'll pardon the cliché, with the possessed Dana and Louis getting together and opening the portal, all Hell is about to break loose.

The Ghostbusters are eventually called out of their cell by the mayor (David Margulies) with the hopes that they'll be able to explain what's going on. They explain the whole deal about Gozer and how the apocalypse is on its way, and in spite of Peck's baseless accusations about them, the mayor lets them go and gives them a full police escort to Central Park West. It all comes down to a big showdown atop the roof, as the Ghostbusters face off against Gozer (Slavitza Jovan) and — of all things — a 100-foot-tall marshmallow man.

Ghostbusters is one of those great '80s movies that's managed to withstand the test of time and become a true part of the pop culture lexicon. Any random person over the age of twenty will know the proper response to the question "who ya gonna call," and that the word "slime" is usable as both a noun and a verb. But how and why has it managed to hold up for so long? What makes it any different from any of the other comedies from the time? I think it's because the movie has the ability to appeal to the broadest audience possible. While other comedies from the time, especially those done by the Ghostbusters crew, are embraced by connoisseurs of '80s cinema, Ghostbusters has a little something for everybody. The humor is certainly prevalent, but there's also elements of horror, science fiction, and a little fantasy. And while the movie is quite obviously a tongue-in-cheek affair from the start to the end, it manages to work on all those levels without wearing itself too thin.

Director Ivan Reitman does a fantastic job, crafting the movie as if it were a straight horror flick. Reitman and cinematographer László Kovács use elaborate camera setups to establish a certain sense of dread beneath the movie's comedic surface, especially as the movie heads into the third act. It helps that the effects aren't all that bad either, in spite of a few instances where things look a little dubious (like the bit where the Stay-Puft Man steps on a church).

And although the theme song composed by Ray Parker Jr. was a number-one hit for three weeks and earned Ghostbusters an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song, the score composed by Elmer Bernstein shouldn't be overlooked either. Bernstein's score fits each scene perfectly, going from a blues sound to something more horror oriented to a more heroic style in order to suit the movie's needs.

But aside from the aforementioned theme song, none of the songs really hold up outside of the movie. Don't get me wrong, they're all fine while you're watching the movie, but they haven't really aged all that well. It's not one of those soundtracks that I think you'll be leaving in your CD player or on your iPod for anything longer than a passing listen. It's not that they're bad songs or anything like that, but they're the kind of generic mid-'80s songs that nobody's really going to remember after hearing them.

And then there's the screenplay, credited to Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. Now I'm not sure exactly how much dialogue was written and how much was improvised on-set, but either way, it's hilarious stuff. There are an almost innumerable amount of memorable moments and quotable lines, the pacing is tight, and I'd be willing to put it up against the script from any other comedy from the last decade and say that at least eighty percent of the time, Ghostbusters would be the funnier movie.

Last but not least is the cast. There's a reason why Ghostbusters has withstood the test of time since its release, and that reason is the cast and their chemistry with one another. Our three stars — Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis — are all amazing, each amiable and engaging in their own special ways. Murray almost carries the whole movie by himself as the sarcastic wise-ass of the group, while Aykroyd and Ramis add a certain whimsy to the group with their enthusiastic performances. Sigourney Weaver is fantastic, as well. She plays the role with a certain elegance that is evident even after her character has been possessed by Zuul, almost as if she were Margaret Dumont and Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis's were the Marx brothers.

Rick Moranis is quite funny as Dana's dorky neighbor, and Annie Potts's droll performance as the Ghostbusters' overworked secretary Janine is entertaining. Meanwhile, Ernie Hudson, the fourth Ghostbuster, is sadly relegated to what is, for all intents and purposes, an incredibly minor and thankless role. He only has two or three big moments, one of which is a lame "I love New York" gag, which is kind of a shame.

Last, but not least, are our two villains. Many people overlook Gozer due to the character's lack of screen time, but the contributions of Slavitza Jovan and voice actress Paddi Edwards as Gozer make the character an intimidating one. The other villain, Walter Peck, is a complete and total sleazebag that is perfectly played by William Atherton. He's great at making you want to hate the character, which is why I'm not surprised Atherton was hired to play the slimy reporter in Die Hard.

If you're a fan of '80s movies and have yet to see Ghostbusters, what's wrong with you? It's one of the seminal movies of the decade, and unlike some other '80s comedies, it's actually aged gracefully in the more than twenty years since it first hit theaters. An outstanding blend of comedy, sci-fi, and horror, Ghostbusters is one of those flicks that most definitely lives up to its reputation. So if you haven't seen it, go rent it right now. The final verdict for Ghostbusters is four and a half stars and a hearty seal of approval.

Final Rating: ****½