As for this re-make, many of you know that the build-up and marketing for this film has gone pretty bad to say the least. With every trailer and TV spot not showing much promise and new theme song being ripped to shreds. A lot of people are giving this film so much hate, that they are not even going to see it and give it a chance.
I will have to agree that I have not liked what I have seen either. The main things is the comedy, the gags did not make me laugh at all and had me shaking my head. Some of the casting did not give me much promise. When I say casting, I do not mean because they are female. I don't mind that they have for an all-female re-make. I just think that there are better choices out there. Some female actors that I would have liked to have seen are Emily Blunt, Katee Sackhoff, Emma Stone or Scarlett Johansson to name but a few.
From the trailers, the only one that looks the part is Kate McKinnon, who I have never heard of until now. I've never been a fan of Melissa McCarthy, except for Bridesmaids, Kristen Wiig seems miscast and I am hating anything and everything Leslie Jones has done so far in the trailers. Even Chris Hemsworth does not look promising. The only things that I liked the look of, was the visual effects of the ghosts and some of the gadgets that I could see.
That being said, I went into the screening with an open mind like I do with all my films. And you know what, it was all right.
The opening scene brings in you in nicely and gives the film some promise. The early character development is pretty solid and I was found the characters believable in their aims and what they wanting out of this.
It moves a long nicely, even with some bits not quite working. I remained keen to see how the film would end and it was a pleasant final act.
The main thing going into what is a comedy, is to see whether it will make you laugh. For me, I laughed I would say fairly steadily throughout the film. Yes, some gags did not work, but some did. Thankfully the ones that didn't, did not make me shake my head in disgust. It just did not work for me. The good stuff did make me chuckle, and I was surprised at the amount of movie references it made which pleased me.
The writing is probably its strongest positive. It is sharp, it's witty at times and there is a lot of nice science tech talk like I remember the original Ghostbusters having, which I was not expecting.
The performances were pretty solid from every department and the chemistry worked fairly well. Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig might not have been stand-outs, but they were certainly solid leads. McCarthy toned down the McCarthy most people associate with her, and we get a good team leader.
Kate McKinnon might not have totally fulfilled my hopes from what I saw of her in the trailer. But I still was entertained by her character. She does get a bit over-the-top. But it was a pretty good transition from her works on TV. From what I can tell, it is a pretty hard skill to move from TV into film.
Everything about Leslie Jones in the trailer was all one note and very annoying, and I did not think she would go anywhere. Amazingly, she is not annoying. Yes, there are moments that would have liked to get rid of. But I thought she felt like a valuable part of the team. I never thought I would actually type that about Leslie Jones.
Chris Hemsworth was really funny in it. He definitely has the best gags. They were so silly and random and yet very clever and well delivered. Some are just silly, went too far and did not work. But the majority of them were great.
I must mention that there is a lot of cameos in this, and in more ways than one. There are cameos of actors/characters from the original, references to quotes from the film. Some worked well, some didn't, and some were just truly awful. Even at times, they looked forced and it made the film's pace slow down. It is almost as if the studio told them to put one in every 15 minutes. I don't mind there being cameos. However, if they had toned that down a bit, they might have made the film stand alone by itself.
I won't mention many negatives as I think the film has had enough bad criticism already. Despite it being better than the trailer show, the good stuff just is not strong or memorable enough to put it with the best films of the year.
But thankfully, it is by far not the worst thing I have seen this year. The story was perfectly fine and felt like a Ghostbusters film. It was well developed, you knew exactly what was going on and it made me interested to see how it would conclude.
To those many haters that are boycotting it. Go and see it as it is a solid film, and with it being released in a summer where the big budget films have not lived up to anything, it is certainly one of the more memorable ones.
One thing that I certainly was not expecting was how they constructed the end credits. In fact, this could be a landmark moment for how big budget films conduct their credits. Most do fancy graphics for the first portion of the credits, and then the rest is just a black background and rolling text. Ghostbusters managed to make the whole credits segment worth watching. From a visual standpoint, it did something really interesting with the credits, that I hope a lot of future blockbuster films take on board.
Speaking of credits, there is a post-credits scene. It is certainly interesting. But I think it is gone down the route of many re-makes, which was a shame. However, I will be intrigued to see where they go with it.
Rating: 7/10
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