Who You Gonna Call? A Review of the Ghostbusters Remake

directed by Paul Feig
written by Kate Dippold and Paul Feig

Few films have come into theaters with more concerted efforts by outside forces to ensure their failure than this one. When it was announced that Paul Feig would helm the long-gestating "Ghostbusters" sequel, which eventually metamorphosed into the remake it now is, and that all of the leads would be female, a vocal population of male netizens probably best described as trolls was quite vocal in their outrage and campaigned quite vigorously against this film. Apparently, in the hierarchy of obnoxiousness of fanboys, DC and Marvel fanboys have absolutely nothing on Ghostbusters fanboys in terms of sheer vileness.

Unfortunately for those fanboys, however, this film is nowhere near the train wreck that they were desperately hoping it would be.

Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) is a physics professor at Columbia University just on the brink of acquiring tenure when a little bit of her past comes back to haunt her: a book she co-wrote with her friend and former colleague Abigail Yates (Melissa McCarthy) about the paranormal, a book she thought had never been published, surfaces in the hands of a man (Ed Begley Jr.) who believes a house-turned-museum that he is managing to be haunted. Incensed, Erin confronts Abby, who is continuing her research on the paranormal at a small college with her colleague Jill (Kate McKinnon). Abby agrees to take the book out of circulation as long as Erin introduces her to the man seeking help with his supernatural problem. When the three of them actually find an honest-to-goodness ghost, they are elated, and start pursuing their research more doggedly, and not a moment too soon, as the mysterious Rowan (Neil Casey), a loner working in the basement of a hotel, seems to be actively inviting ghosts from the other side, which include the malevolent spirit of a rich heiress and an electrocuted convict. Erin, Abby and Jill, along with subway ticket seller Patty (Leslie Jones), who volunteers to help them after seeing one of ghosts herself, set out to save the city, and possibly the world, from this supernatural threat, with or without the help of their thoroughly useless assistant Kevin (Chris Hemsworth).

This movie spent the better part of the last three decades in what can politely be described as development hell and the fact that they were able to get it done at all is a minor Hollywood miracle. It's even more impressive that it was as good as it turned out to be.

The storytelling was reasonably taut, the characters gelled well, and the visual effects were a nice update on the ones that appeared in the thirty-two year old original. No new ground was broken here, as the filmmakers basically went for what worked in the original, with the pseudo-science, soft horror and broad comedy, and, thankfully, removed the bit about one of the main characters stalking one of the team's clients. It was a clean-sheet remake; I had half-expected (and hoped for) some kind of torch-passing sequel, but I can understand why the filmmakers decide to just start from scratch. Speaking of passing the torch, though, almost all of the living main cast members (Harold Ramis passed away three years ago) showed up in cameo roles to lend their support. Sigourney Weaver looks awesome; the years have been kind. It was a flawed movie, to be sure, but still a lot of good fun. It does not deserve anywhere near the amount of pre-cooked hatred that was aimed at it.

Oddly enough, what disappointed me about this film was that, as films by Paul Feig starring Melissa McCarthy go, it was rather tame, even taking into account the PG-13 rating that is out of the pair's usual R-18 wheelhouse. I had expected Kristen Wiig to be the "straight" character to McCarthy's zany one, but what I didn't expect was that over the course of the movie, McCarthy would end up playing it straight as well. It's almost as if she can't be as funny without a potty mouth. McKinnon and Jones were absolutely delightful all throughout, though, as was Hemsworth as the clueless Kevin. McKinnon, in particular, was the standout as, apart from being funny, she was also the team's weapons designer, and in that aspect brought some freshness to the movie as they went beyond the traditional proton packs and traps. She's also the star of some pretty snazzy "proton fu" during the film's climax.


Obviously, there's some franchise-building here as the film has a post-credits stinger setting up a sequel, but fortunately, this film stands on its own just fine. If indeed this turns out to be a franchise, it's off to a reasonably decent start.

7/10