Ghostbusters Review

Ever since the first trailer dropped for the Paul Feig directed remake of the all-women Ghostbusters dropped online, the movie has been the most reluctantly political statements in recent memory. Thankfully,  the movie largely bypasses the political muck and just wants to follow the beats and be a good Ghostbusters movie, and it succeeds, for the most part.

The story follows Erin (Kristen Wiig), a physics professor at Colombia whose tenure track is threatened when her ex-research partner Abby (Melissa McCarthy) releases their long forgotten book about the scientific justification for ghosts without her permission. Abby is still delving into the science of the paranormal with mad engineer Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon), one trip and sliming at a haunted house later, Erin is back on the ghost train and the trio opens up a paranormal research center.  They pick up MTA worker Patty (Leslie Jones) after a nice haunting jaunt in the subway, where misadventure and hilarity ensue as the team unravels the mystery behind the increase in ghost activity .

Like the original, the key to the film's success lies in the chemistry of its core group, and the four actresses bounce off each other to spectacular degrees.  Wiig and McCarthy have built up an easy, back-and-forth rapport with each other, and their familial bond as the only people in the world who believed in each other is the heart of the film, and it's really what builds the foundation for both Jones and McKinnon to latch on to and keeps all the antics grounded to a emotional center.  Jones also does great work as a normal person who starts encountering much crazier shit than she was prepared for, and McKinnon steals the movie with her off-the-wall zeal and general bat-shit behavior. Chris Hemsworth also has more comedic chops than anyone was really expecting who pushes the beautiful idiot trope so far it becomes delightfully absurd.

The movie does have it problems though, largely in its structure.  The film basically proceeds in a rinse-repeat cycle of the ladies encountering a ghost, being discredited/dismissed, and Holtzmann building increasingly outlandish gear.  The chemistry of the main casts carries this wash cycle style of storytelling as well as it can, but the whole thing falls apart when the movie transitions to the third act and spends about 15 minutes of basically dead air as we wait for interesting things to start happening again.  The movie recovers well enough in the climax and ends on a note strong enough that I'm actually looking forward to any sequels they come out with.

The best thing about this film is that, while you're watching it, you forget the bullshit that surrounded it and just enjoy yourself for two hours. It has its speed bumps, and it is a little too faithful to the franchise formula for its own good, but overall, it carries on the spirit of the original while adding its own spin to it, which is all anyone can really ask for.

Grade: B