Ghostbusters (2016)

Plot: Erin and Abby are co-authors of a book which posits the existence of ghosts. The two went their separate ways when the book becomes unpopular. But when Erin is requested to investigate a possible paranormal activity, the two of them find a ghost and eventually decide to form a group to capture them. Thus with Abby's engineer, Jillian, and an MTA worker named Patty, the four become - what else? The Ghostbusters.

When this movie was coming out it got a lot of negative feedback. Some of it was warranted to a degree given how the trailers made it look like it wasn't going to be a thing really good. I think I can say that I was more optimistic than most people to a degree. But after it came out, people are either saying it's "eh" or at least a decent flick. For me, I'm in the "eh" group.

Let's start with both the Ghostbusters themselves and the writing because they go hand in hand. People were the most curious about how these actresses for going to carry out these roles given how big of phenomenon the first film was and the fact that it's being done by women instead of men. For my money, I think they did a decent job with what they had to work with. They're having fun with their roles and the chemistry between the four of them works very well, and while I can't think of an example for each of them, I think I can say they each had at least one good joke. To be clear with that statement, there are plenty of moments when the jokes work - mostly with Kate McKinnon who I got the most laughs from. But when the jokes die, it's usually because the writers wrote some bad jokes that the actors are doing their best to pull off. Nowhere is this more true with the jokes revolving Chris Hemsworth's character. I did not have high hopes for him in the trailers, and while he did land one or two good jokes his character was a nuisance. Again, not necessarily his fault it's just the way his character is written.

As bad as some of the jokes were, the worst part of the movie for me was the villain. Granted, I give the movie credit for the idea of having the villain make portals that brings these ghosts to New York as opposed having the villain be an all powerful ghost like the last two films. Points for doing something different. But the fact that the villain is this dweeb who's doing this under his basement at his job was pretty lame to me. They tried to make it seem like he can relate to the Ghostbusters a little before the climax, but I think they needed to do more in order for that to work.

The climax was also a mixed bag. There was some cool moments during the action (again, mostly with Kate KcKinnon) and the designs of the ghosts looked neat. But I feel like they could've done more with both the action and the designs because it feels like most of the interesting stuff was already shown in the trailers. Also without going into too much detail, there's a moment in the climax shortly before the final battle where it looks like they're going to give us a joke with Hemsworth, the CIA agents and the military that's so over-the-top silly that you have no choice but to laugh. But instead they do nothing with the build up until the end credits which by then the moment was passed.

And that's my review for Ghostbusters. It's not a movie worth hating like everyone in the Internet thought it was going to be, but it could have been a lot more. There was effort put into this product which pays off with the performances and chemistry with the four lead characters and there are some good jokes. But in the end, a considerable amount of the jokes die, the creativity with the action and the ghosts aren't as good as I hoped it would be, and the villain on a whole was pretty lame. I'm glad that it has a relatively positive reception given how practically nobody had any hope for this movie, but for me it's a mixed bag. If you want to see this movie, I'd say give it a shot. It's not Ghostbusters II at the very least.

Rating: 55%