Ghostbusters (2016)

[Werthead]

So this is out and we don't have a thread on it? That's so not us.

I quite liked it. It was reasonably funny, it was very short, the CG was pretty good (though got overused a bit in the finale) and Kate McKinnon gave a real stand-out performance (especially during her Big Hero Moment in the end). The camoes from the original characters were well-judged and they did the thing the original did by channelling the spirit of New York (which in this case means a horrified gasp at lower Manhattan rental prices). Also, the supporting cast was superb. Charles Dance, Andy Garcia, MK Williams, Mike from VEEP...I'm surprised the reviews haven't mentioned the supporting cast so much, as they're great. On the negative side, the ending was a bit pap and the villain was just nowhere. He only had presence when possessing Chris Hemsworth ("Is this too Peter Pan? I'll go with it").

Also, Sigourney Weaver was cooler in her 30 seconds in the movie than in the two previous films combined. I want to see her character back, maybe teaming up with McKinnon. There's a whole spin-off right there.

I was also musing where a remake was really the way to go, but then I remembered that it's been 27 years since the last movie, which is quite a long time (trivia: Ghostbusters 2 is closer in time to the Cuban Missile Crisis than it is to us). Doing a soft reboot, a hand-over kind of thing, would be difficult to pull off now that the older Ghostbusters wouldn't be able to do as much physically and you'd have that problem of how to juggle the old cast and the new ones. The Force Awakens did it well by really just focusing on Han Solo, but a Ghostbusters movie would struggle to do the same thing and you'd risk it ending up more like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. And part of the fun of the original movies was the scepticism greeting the crew's antics. That's much harder to sell after two massive paranormal attacks on New York City (one of them solved by animating the Statue of Liberty!) witnessed by millions of people.

Overall, decent. Not as good as the first film, much better than the second and much better than I think anyone had a right to expect.

[Joe Pesci]

No love for for Vigo the Carpathian??? I'll probably give this a watch when it gets to a pay channel or online, but I refuse to pay for anything with Leslie Jones in it. I simply find her intolerable and not funny. Did they stereotype the shit out of her character too? 

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

9 minutes ago, Joe Pesci said:

No love for for Vigo the Carpathian??? I'll probably give this a watch when it gets to a pay channel or online, but I refuse to pay for anything with Leslie Jones in it. I simply find her intolerable and not funny. Did they stereotype the shit out of her character too? 

I'm with in waiting until it's on TV but as far as I know her and Kate McKinnon were bright spots. 

[drawkcabi]

Yeah gonna wait for Netflix for this. The trailer really dampened me, can't stand the look of the CGI and I found nothing in it funny.

I don't see what would have been so hard for this to have been set in the same universe as the original with Venkman, Stanz, and Zedemore handing off their business to McCarthy and her crew.

[Zorral]

Wrote about it in the Watch Watching topic.

We really enjoyed it.  However, it is a light comic film, with not a lot to say about it after talking about that it is funny, it does do the invocation of NYC, the trolls and the previous films and who was in them, and the supporting cast -- which, btw, included Michael K. Williams (Omar and Chalky White among other charcters), who really didn't have anything to do.

It's the perfect hot humid summer movie, for adults and kids both.  But there isn't any more to say about it, so probably no need for a subject to itself.

[karaddin]

I loved it. Sure some of the in universe jokes were cheesey but the meta humour just killed me. The villain was flat, but given he seemed like they were deliberately trolling their trolls... He seemed like a red piller and I loved it. Made me wonder if they tweaked it after the backlash started it was so on point with it. Was everything I think I could have wanted from it in this situation.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

11 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I loved it. Sure some of the in universe jokes were cheesey but the meta humour just killed me. The villain was flat, but given he seemed like they were deliberately trolling their trolls... He seemed like a red piller and I loved it. Made me wonder if they tweaked it after the backlash started it was so on point with it. Was everything I think I could have wanted from it in this situation.

They added the youtube bit after the trailer dropped.

[Werthead]

Quote

I don't see what would have been so hard for this to have been set in the same universe as the original with Venkman, Stanz, and Zedemore handing off their business to McCarthy and her crew.

As I said above, a core part of the franchise is the scepticism which greets the initial claims of there being ghosts. That worked well in the original and here. Ghostbusters 2 tried to pretend that people could rationalise away the events of the first movie which was extremely unconvincing. The alternative is that you have a world in which the existence of ghosts is then fully accepted, in which case you have to ask why there aren't tons of Ghostbusters and similar organisations all over the world, government-backed research, people and religions freaking out at the proof of life after death, and other stuff which is outside the scope of a comedy movie (although the new movie's ending does suggest they have some ideas for tackling at least a couple of those ideas). Dan Ayckroyd I think was keen on exploring those ideas but everyone else felt it was kind of heavy.

Also, I don't think anyone is going to be too convinced by 65 and 70-year-old dudes fighting ghosts (even if only briefly before they do a handover), and if Venkman, Stanz and Zeddemore aren't fighting ghosts then what is the point? And it'd be hard to see the original gang in action without Egon.

Finally, 27 years since the last movie. That's a big leap for a sequel that isn't Star Wars. I think it could have worked, but at a certain point going through that checklist of things to do, I can see them saying, "Fuck it, reboot," as a perfectly legitimate choice.

If it was 1995 and they'd decided to reboot it when all the old cast was still around, relatively young and healthy, that'd be a different matter. But remember that going with the exact same actors, writers and director is no guarantee you'll bottle lightning twice (see: Ghostbusters 2).

[drawkcabi]

Yeah sorry Wert, totally disagree.

The core of Ghostbusters is New York City and some people that to different degrees are college educated, smart, and inventive while still come off as regular working slobs and it's up to them to save the city.

You don't need 65-70 year old dudes fighting ghosts, they can be retired. Psychokinetic energy can ebb and flow which was why Gozer has only been able to come to earth at certain times from ancient Sumerian times up until Ivor Shandor designed Spook Central. The city could have been relatively quiet for 27 years thus the Ghostbusters had to go out of business with hardly no ghosts/paranormal activity to deal with.

There could be growing skepticism/conspiracy theories that have emerged involved ala the moon landing, holocaust, 9/11, etc.

Then weird shit starts to happen again and the old dudes are too old but they still have the technology and experience to help/advise a new generation of scientist-average joes that are ready to take up the mantle.

That's the movie I'd have loved to see.

I really like Red Letter Media's assessment of the movie.

 

[VarysTheSpider]

1 hour ago, drawkcabi said:

I really like Red Letter Media's assessment of the movie.

Loved that, just watched it. Actually made me somewhat excited to see the film (eventually) as I quite enjoy watching shit films.

[Zorral]

Don't forget that at the end of the movie a guy takes all the credit for what the women did -- a guy who did NOTHING at all but be taken possession of by the Big Bad.  But in his own mind he did it all.  He's THE ghostbuster . . . .

What was cool though, was at the very end of the movie the city of NYC does a huge thank you to the women via the iconic buildings and lights.  And the women are able to keep working at what they love to do.

And why in hell shouldn't a black transit worker be a ghostbuster?  One does need a lot more than a degree in physics to do it right -- and she knows the city and its history.  Historians rule!  Particularly local historians.  There are a very large number of them,in NYC and they are blue color more often than academics.  Sheesh.

 

[Werthead]

23 hours ago, drawkcabi said:

I really like Red Letter Media's assessment of the movie.

I'm not sure why Red Letter Media get so much love. Their reviews are often nonsensical. For example, they bitch in this one about the female GBs eating junk food whilst doing science. I guess they forgot about the Twinki ("What about the Twinkie?") from the original film. Also, whilst I agree there was probably one (or three) too many fart gags in the film, the original did have quite a few dick gags and even a menstruation one (not to mention Venkman being a total sleazebag for almost the whole movie, and Ray getting oral sex from a ghost for no reason). Slight case of double standards there.

I agree the original movie (although definitely not GB2) was superior, and some of that is down to it being more restrained and grounded (although Murray did mug a lot in the original film, but helped make it work, unlike GB2 whe he seemed very unenthused). But really, there isn't the quantum leap in difference of quality here that people seem - in some cases rather desperately - to be trying to make work.

And as much as I was a raging fanboy of the original film and the animated series as a cartoon, suggesting it had anything approaching the cultural impact of Star Wars (like they do in the review) is beyond insane.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

I thought Ray was dreaming about getting BJ.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Thanks Wert, you've sold me on it. I've been pretty sure I want to see this, but with movie tickets being so pricey, I have to be choosey with what I go and see. I love Ghostbusters, grew up on it, and McCarthy and Wiig are always funny to me. You're not the first one to say Kate McKinnon is awesome, and I've never seen her (that I remember), so I feel like this will be a nice surprise for me as I hear she's been out there being funny for a few years now. I don't know Leslie Jones either, but she seems funny in the previews.

I'm going in the next couple of days.

I also agree on your reasoning for why this needs to be a reboot and not a continued universe sequel.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

3 hours ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

I thought Ray was dreaming about getting BJ.

The problem is the scene is put in the middle of a montage which, if taken in the context of the film, the BJ doesn't come across as a dream. I believe the extended scene insinuates it is a dream? Or something like that? I don't know. But for fans who only have watched the film itself, the BJ scene can very easily be read as a ghostly encounter and not a dream.

[drawkcabi]

33 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

The problem is the scene is put in the middle of a montage which, if taken in the context of the film, the BJ doesn't come across as a dream. I believe the extended scene insinuates it is a dream? Or something like that? I don't know. But for fans who only have watched the film itself, the BJ scene can very easily be read as a ghostly encounter and not a dream.

Ray is asleep in a dorm-like room with 3 beds, and Venkman and Spengler are each in a bed sleeping too. Then Ray is in a bigger bed in a lavishly decorated room without Venkman and Spengler and is wearing a Napoleon-like jacket with tassels, the ghost appears above him and then disappears, then his pants unzip and Ray goes cross-eyed. Then Ray is back in the dorm room wrapped in his sheet and rolls over falling out of bed.

I saw this movie in the theaters when I was 9 and knew it was a dream.

 

[Maester Llama]

Saw it today. I like it. I think I might like it a lot.

 

-- The four main ghostbuster characters are just great. Really wonderful. McKinnon is brilliant and certainly worthy of special note, but all four characters really pop and the good lines / comedic beats are spread out well. Jones' character is introduced a little later in the movie and she completes the dynamic; it would not work without her, I don't think. Hemsworth is also hilarious as mentioned, of course, and I think the film uses him just enough.

 

-- I didn't laugh at every joke, and there's a dud or two, but I did laugh at a lot of them. I chuckled almost continuously during this movie, and laughed multiple times. It's a very joyful movie. [And I did find one of the fart jokes legit funny. Just the one.] The comedy also sways back and forth between big and broad on the one hand and on the other more subtle jokes that don't necessarily mug and mark themselves as such; again, the balance is judged well. A couple of the line readings I thought actually worked in the trailer didn't make the finished film.

 

-- There were a couple moments near the end, including a brief speech by McKinnon's character, that I found nicely moving.

 

-- Weaver's cameo is just great; several of the cameos are fun in an oh-go-on-then sort of way, but Weaver's character feels like she could be an actual part of this universe in a hypothetical sequel.

 

-- The action beats are variable. Some of them are energetic and fun, but some feel samey and low-impact, like the movie's struggling to be interested in them. The climax is perhaps too long. The action isn't a write-off by any means; I'm not dismissing it. There are multiple action scenes that worked for me, but the big bustup at the end isn't the film with its best foot forward, I don't think.

 

-- I am not crazy about the new version of the theme song.

 

-- The villain is meh as has been ably pointed out already, but frankly he's not the point so it's fine.

 

Not, I don't think, as well-constructed a film as the original, but very funny, very well-cast, very appealing, with great characters. Honestly I'm considering going to see it again. Would watch much more. Good stuff.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

9 hours ago, drawkcabi said:

Ray is asleep in a dorm-like room with 3 beds, and Venkman and Spengler are each in a bed sleeping too. Then Ray is in a bigger bed in a lavishly decorated room without Venkman and Spengler and is wearing a Napoleon-like jacket with tassels, the ghost appears above him and then disappears, then his pants unzip and Ray goes cross-eyed. Then Ray is back in the dorm room wrapped in his sheet and rolls over falling out of bed.

I saw this movie in the theaters when I was 9 and knew it was a dream.

 

I was almost sure it was a dream without seeing the extended scene.  

[Centrist Simon Steele]

10 hours ago, drawkcabi said:

Ray is asleep in a dorm-like room with 3 beds, and Venkman and Spengler are each in a bed sleeping too. Then Ray is in a bigger bed in a lavishly decorated room without Venkman and Spengler and is wearing a Napoleon-like jacket with tassels, the ghost appears above him and then disappears, then his pants unzip and Ray goes cross-eyed. Then Ray is back in the dorm room wrapped in his sheet and rolls over falling out of bed.

I saw this movie in the theaters when I was 9 and knew it was a dream.

 

 

Well, not everyone agrees. I can see your point of view, but when I was nine I figured they were playing with the idea that most ghostly encounters are dream like. And they were trying to keep it PG and subtle. But overall, it seemed like it was a BJ to me.

[drawkcabi]

4 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

Well, not everyone agrees. I can see your point of view, but when I was nine I figured they were playing with the idea that most ghostly encounters are dream like. And they were trying to keep it PG and subtle. But overall, it seemed like it was a BJ to me.

I'm not disputing it was a blow job, I just don't get how it was not dream. A dream about getting a blow job from a ghost, yes, definitely, but a dream nonetheless.

They even had the harp dream music.