Review – Ghostbusters

Paul Fieg’s Ghostbusters is the most divisive movie of 2016 and it all happened before it even came out.  After the first trailer became the most disliked video on YouTube, tons of internet trolls bashed the film, claiming it a bad before anybody ever saw it.

Well trolls, I have one thing to say to you.  Suck it!  Ghostbusters is pure awesomeness.  A worthy reboot with a cool plot, tons of comedy, a great cast, and exciting action.

In this reboot of the 1984 classic, paranormal enthusiasts Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) and Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy), nuclear engineer Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon), and New York native Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones), must band together before a ghost invasion takes over New York.

Everyone lost their minds when it was announced there would be an all female cast replacing comedy icons Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson.  But, Wiig, McCarthy, McKinnon, and Jones are excellent in both their comedy and action chops.  Wiig and McCarthy can be hit or miss with their jokes, but in Ghostbusters, they hit for the most part.  A couple of their lines fall short, but most land perfectly.  Jones, in her biggest role to date, is a blast of energy whenever she’s on screen.  And Kate McKinnon stole the movie for me.  Holtzmann is so weird, so smart, so funny, and McKinnon knocks it out of the park.  She makes the character her own, as it plays like one of the many brilliant characters she plays on Saturday Night Live.  From her quick witted one liners to her bizarre facial expression, McKinnon doesn’t miss a beat and this will hopefully be the launching pad for a great film career.  We also get a surprisingly entertaining performance from Chris Hemsworth as the dimwitted receptionist and pitch perfect cameos from the originals, Murray, Ackroyd, and Hudson (R.I.P. Ramis).

Paul Fieg continues to prove why he is the best at what he does.  He makes action-comedies better than anyone in Hollywood today.  The laughs keep coming and when they aren’t there, the action lights up the screen.  Some of the jokes seemed forced and the action at the end runs really thin, especially during an interdimensional rescue mission that really didn’t fit.  But, minus the interdimensional stuff, the ending is a colorful, epic scene featuring The Ghostbusters kicking more ass than anything from the original films that slaps a smile on your face that won’t leave.

The movie is incredibly self-aware about the internet haters and creating something new.  I was all into for the first half of the film, as it was used in a smart and inventive way.  But the continuous badgering of the message got old in the last half, which ultimately killed the effect it had.

The Ghostbusters films have never had great villains.  They were always kind of random and not fully developed.  The same can be said for this version as well.  He was more developed than the ones from the original, but was still just a plot device with no real motivation or anything behind him.

Ghostbusters isn’t a perfect film, but it most certainly is an entertaining one.  Feig proves his excellence as an action-comedy director and the core cast of Wiig, McCarthy, McKinnon, and Jones are all awesome.  This film is proof that you can never judge a movie just by its trailer.  You just have to see it and judge for yourself.

MY RATING – 3/4

Did you see Ghostbusters?  What did you think?  Comment below or hit me up on Twitter @kevflix or Facebook at Kevflix.