Ghostbusters (2016)

Not Worth WatchingI tried to be open whilst seeing this, but it barely gave me a chance. It’s not a total train wreck of a film, it’s just simply not good. This 2016 remake features the ghosts from Scooby-Doo (2002) and makes as many references to the originals as it could stuff in its pockets, including a multitude of cameos thrown in for good measure.

I can’t tell whether or not it had an agenda and was trying to make a point about women in film, or was making fun of that agenda. It did, however, have a few too many vag jokes for a PG rating. A lot of the scenes seemed way too intense for it’s rating too.

Each character was very eccentric, and not in a good way. Each character amplified their behaviour, which became this annoying formula where everyone in each scene trying to out-weird or outsmart the other. Kate McKinnon was the crazy-nerdy, Leslie Jones was the black lady, and Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wigg shared the smart-nerdy which hurt to watch 100% of the time. Chris Hemsworth was naturally the funniest (Leslie Jones came in at a close second), though I feel like they may have overused him like the minions in Despicable Me (2010).

There are parts of this plot that I can’t explain like the dancing army/policemen credits, that ghost that flashes people, the scene where they let the slimer steal the car for a later plot point and the endless fake science talk.

Overall, this did have some genuinely funny parts which were sadly surrounded my a 155 minute SNL skit that was trying it’s hardest to be both funny and clever.
Nothing in this universe will ever make me like Melissa McCarthy, this just gave me more reason to continue not to like her.

Question: With the Ghostbusters franchise are all the ghosts, ghosts of people? How do we get slimers, balloon ghosts and dragon ghosts? Do ghosts get to choose what kind of ghost they want to be?