REVIEW: GHOSTBUSTERS 2016!

GARETH 19-JULY-2016 Let me just start by saying a few things that a lot of people will probably bring up regarding this movie.

First, I have been a big fan of the original films for years. They were part of my childhood, but let’s be honest about that. If Michael Bay hasn’t ruined my love for Transformers, this movie will not ruin my love of the original Ghostbusters films.

Second, you can’t believe everything on the Internet. This is especially true of people rating movies on trailers alone, regardless of content. Trailers are cut with a handful of footage provided, with a musical queue. The editors behind the trailer do their best to hype a film with this limited content, and often they key into a tone that doesn’t represent the final product. It’s supposed to grab your attention long enough for you to remember.

Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, the big question is whether or not I liked the movie. I am, after all, someone in the demographic the internet wants you to think should hate this film for all it represents – gender swapped heroes of my childhood and lowest bar humor designed to appeal to the iPhone generation, right?

Yes, the main characters are all essentially generic archtypes for group roles. This doesn’t pull you out of the film though, because they establish these roles as soon as you are introduced to each character. From the onset of meeting each character the story begins to shift everyone into working as a group in a more natural narrative sense. The characters change over the movie just enough for their original stereotypes; and when they have to come together to function as a team it works.

I’m not known for my fondness of comedies, so one of the complaints I had coming out of the film was the feeling they were shooting as many jokes as possible. It felt like most of the banter between everyone were comedic comparisons being used to identify who the characters were or were not and the punchlines were how you figured out who ultimately had what role. This constant joking thankfully eased up towards the end when the jokes turned more from “look how weird we are” to “this weird stuff is actually happening.”

Despite all that I just said about the jokes, some of them were actually well-played. They have a wink-wink playfulness with the legacy of the franchise without insulting anything that has come before.

The dayglow CG also wasn’t something I wasn’t personally a fan of, but that was more of a personal aesthetic. I’ve always been more a fan of the less is more school of effects – minimalism and shadowplay before the grand reveal. However, this visual style decision is consistent throughout the movie. It’s not just tossed in randomly. Specific colors and lighting means certain things throughout the movie. When you have a visual clue in a scene you are clued into what might actually be happening.

One more thing, for those who are keen on the finer details of movies like this. The way the movie is put together is just as much as a way to honor the legacy. There are many cameos through the film that feel rightly set up. Those that are part of a joke are not there as the joke. One of the other things I really appreciated was that the soundtrack was in the same style of the original films, being scored as a serious supernatural thriller and not a comedy.

Overall, the movie is alright. Being originally uninterested, I do not regret going out to see it. It’s worth the ticket to see it on the big screen and that’s always my first test for a movie.

Is it as good as the original Ghostbusters? No, but it is probably better than Ghostbusters 2. Despite saying that though it doesn’t really need to be compared. It’s less a remake in the way the original cartoon was its own thing after the movies. By the end you’ll have a favorite character, and laughed out loud as some point.

* gifs by gamesradar.com

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