I also didn’t like the way “the public” was represented. Anyone with a line was a goof ball. No “real” people likw Walter Peck for instance.
The cameos were shoe-horned in. I love Sigourney Weaver… Surely there was better use for her.
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Being shoehorned is practically definitive of cameos.
As for Peck, he’s an odd choice for ‘real’ given that he’s such a strawman of the type Harold Ramis is so fond of beating up in his films. I honestly don’t think the original film would stand up to the kind of pickiness people are subjecting the new one to. There is already enough in the finally released footage to make it clear to me that the claim ‘not funny at all’ is flying in the teeth of my own experience. I’m actually angry they didn’t release some of these gags sooner.
There was a bit in the first trailer where Tolan slaps somebody and says “The power of pain compells you!” had a lot of people wondering what the fuck. But now we can see more of that scene where Yates clearly Yeats is posessed and Tolan hauls back and slaps the ghost out of her. That’s fucking hilarious. Why wasn’t that in the first trailer? What the fuck is wrong with these people?
Oh, to have seen the look on Ramis’ face when he realized William Atherton exists.
Eh.
The problems with reboots is that everyone has a different idea as to what the best way to go about them are.
The original IS the original… the standard of which is set.
I’m glad you liked it though.
I recall seeing that scene in a trailer months ago. I found it so stupid that I decided if that was the quality of humor they were going for I wouldn’t be seeing the film.
The line was cringeworthy, especially as it seems to have come at the end of the actual funny bit. But the fact that she slapped Abby and the ghost popped out, slammed several centimeters to the left before floating up and away is a clever bit of slapstick, visually and conceptually upending expectations. If you didn’t think it was funny before I elucidated the gag, you won’t find it funny now, but that was a great gag that rises above a scene that appears to be played-out Excorcist homage.
Well, the funny bit was that Leslie Jones’ character slapped Melissa McCarthy’s character a second time, even though the ghost left after the first slap.
And I liked the bit (perhaps multiple bits?) that referred to the endless Internet criticism of the all-women cast.
Funny, Kate McKinnon was my favorite character.
“He lives with my mother.”
I really enjoyed it. My kids loved it. My husband enjoyed. All in all, far better than I was expecting after all the slams the movie has gotten.
I think it suffered from a problem that a lot of reboots have: parts of it were deliberately very close to the original in tone and humor, and parts of it clearly reflect the different humor of the cast/generation/etc. The movie stuttered for me as it moved between homage and becoming its own entity. I think it could have been more seamlessly integrated. If you go in expecting the first movie with the genders flipped, well, this ain’t that movie.
The special effects were a vast step up, no surprise.
Overall, I hope that it has enough traction to get to the second film.
I’ve been giving it two different reviews:
[ul]
[li]On It’s Own Merits: Kinda funny with a few really good parts. Enjoyable enough way to pass a couple hours.[/li][li]Judged Against the Broad Oeuvre of Pointless Reboots that Didn’t Need to Exist: It’s fucking awesome! Judged against other pointless reboots the standard is usually “How much does it suck?” but this one was actually enjoyable so it gets the highest superlatives compared to other entries of similar pointlessness.[/li][/ul]
And count me as another brand new Kate McKinnon fan. I’ve never seen her in anything else, haven’t seen SNL since she’s been in the cast.
In this movie she cracks me the hell up, consistently… especially when she was “just kind it there”.
“Mike Hat” was a little too dumb for me but the exchange was well done so I did laugh.
My absolute favorite joke:
“Ed Mulgrave has been dead for 15 years.”
“But he came to see me just yesterday…”
<Ed Mulgrave approaches the group>
“…Here he is. This is the man who I spoke with.”
“Oh! This is Ed Jr., Ed Mulgrave’s son.”
“O.K., well, clearly that’s who I was talking about.”
Do you think there was supposed to be an extra layer to that joke, since Ed Jr. the character was played by Ed Jr. the actor?
I had a professor in a translation class who believed that absolutely everything should be re-translated every ten years, because the world into which you’re translating keeps shifting. Well, lots of luck there getting that project going, but I do kind of feel a similar way about stories. Sometimes the re-interpretation can override the original in public memory, so that if we see a movie about Huckleberry Finn we may think we understand what the story is about, but we don’t. But for something that is basically pop culture in our own time, its tropes can be re-examined with a new lens, or even subverted.
I mean, consider how different it looks what a skeez Venkman was in the original. Yes, he is a hero who steps up without hesitation and with magnificent aplomb when called upon to save the world. But he’s also kind of a creep. He would be written differently now, probably downplaying his creepiness, but on the other hand perhaps doubling down and being self-aware of how the world has changed around his archetype.
What we have in the case of this movie, though, is an upheaval that gives the writers freedom to reinvent how the world of Ghostbusters arises and plays out as the result of a non-analogous set of personalities driving events. It’s a good idea. I’m glad people are doing it. That’s not to say I don’t roll my eyes at how often it gets done these days.
We have every right to be sick to death of so many goddamned variations on the zombie theme. Yet, I’m glad somebody else is doing these experiments. I’m not watching more than a small fraction of them, and I sigh whenever I hear about a new one, but now where else in culture is anybody getting away on that much meditation on tropes. I loved the Tobey McGuire Spider-Man, but the more recent reboot sold itself to me because they managed to squeeze Spider-Man’s signature wisecracking into combat scenes, they played out the Gwen Stacy tragedy, and selected a very different subset of details and interpretations of the greater Spider-Man narrative than the Sam Rami version did. So, I’m not worked up about it being unnecessary. I’m glad they managed to make money having another go at it.
Unfortunately with the new Ghostbusters, the critical response is so entangled with the castration complexes of the arrested development crowd that it, and the chance for women to be seen as credible comedy and action leads, kind of sinks or swims here.
I really enjoyed the film! It isn’t a new classic or anything, but it was quite a great bit of fun and pretty hilarious (I loved the internet commentator jokes) . I have always enjoyed Kate McKinnon, so I was pleased to see her talents weren’t wasted.
I know there were some complaints about the ‘loser’ villain, but unlike the original, this movie is held in a world where people don’t think ghosts are real. So I think it really worked to have someone who was acting out of spite for being mocked to open up the doorway between worlds. We’ll get the big baddy (Zuul) in the next one it seems.
Great cameos too!
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Fortunately the Internet Manchild Brigade is not as tuned into the zeitgeist as they think. Ghostbusters is getting solid reviews and excellent word-of-mouth, heading for a $45-$50 million opening. That’s potentially Paul Feig’s biggest ever, and several of his movies have been excellent sleepers.
I agree largely with the critical consensus. The movie stands well on its own, though the villain was weak and the third act a bit of a mess. (It seems like a whole Kristen-Wiig-gets-mad-and-exits-the-group-only-to-triumphantly-return-and-save-the-day subplot was awkwardly excised at the last moment. Also we need more Slimer.)
Kate McKinnon is an absolute treasure. I normally can’t stand Leslie Jones on SNL but she was tolerable here (though her character was underused; she’s supposed to be the NYC history expert but only gets to contribute once or twice to help solve the mystery. The heavy lifting is all done by Wiig and McCarthy.) I appreciated the little cameos and nods that they put in to acknowledge the original. Shame they couldn’t get Rick Moranis to do something.
Did they do any kind of tribute to Harold Ramis?
At the end of the movie it said something like “For Harold Ramis”.
There is a bust of him early in the film, at the college.
Schweet. If I see it again I’ll have to keep an eye out for it.
I found him interesting and quite original (based on the movies I’ve seen) Unfortunately he didn’t really like soup.
That’s what I liked about it. Slimerette, the baddie becoming the cartoon logo ghost… I didn’t know what to expect next.
I just saw it today in IMAX 3D and loved it.
Well, if you stayed to the very end of the credits there was a great Mythology Gag/Sequel Hook.
“Has anybody heard of Zuul?”
I heard “The power of Patty compels you!” - the character’s name being Patty Tolan.
I liked the movie a lot. Not great, but pretty good.
I liked the character but I didn’t like the actor/performance.