"Ghostbusters 2016" PG 13
A long SNL sketch filled story mixes with the iconic legend of a rebooted 1980s horror comedy in this surprising sequel. It is set Now York 15 years after Sept. 11, and it comes up there somewhere. The SNL characters playing the Ghostbusters are at times annoying, but are ultimately cracking one liners to a potential hit.
The remake acts like the events of the first two movies never happened, a bit like Amazing Spider Man rebooted that, and the villain is similarly motivated to that of the villains in both Amazing Spider Man films. Misunderstood nerd psycho wants to enter another plane to destroy the heroes because he was fired, bullied or treated badly.
Paul Fieg, director of Spy, has the pulse of the millennial style of manic colorful images and the one liner, and seems right on point about channeling SNL bits from modern times into a nearly cohesive plot.
Yes, where the story lacks in making much sense, it makes up in goofy and stereotyped characters. Most of the men are utterly moronic, even the loopy secretary guy, played by Hemsworth.
Wiig and McCarthy play the spiritual descendants of the characters from the original, but there is really no attempt to say they literally are.
The original cast survivors play cameos, one of which at the end is supposed to imply Weaver is someone important to someone else, but it turns out it's just that she's Weaver.
The basic plot is similar if not the same to the original. Paranormal activity, ghosts and stuff, is increasing all over the city. A bungling mayor and a distraught villain, and Murray as a skeptic, are out to debunk it all. Then along come three SNL type comedians, who happen to be female, who want to bust ghosts. They eventually get fired from their jobs and have to start a business over a stereotyped Chinese food shop, and make ghost catching stuff. They couldn't afford the fire house from the original. They eventually meet up with the sassy train station lady, and she joins them. Then the bad guy seeks to possess the silly male secretary, and the spooky made up lay lines of spirituality in it open when he activates a porthole into the netherworld near an old hotel. Yep, same story as both original movies.
Where it deviates from the first films, and follows the cartoons, is in the colorful oddities and jokes, some of them puerile and others explained.
It's a good film. It just isn't the original.
Review by Adam Browne
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