Director: Paul Feig
Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Duration: 116 (or 134) minutes
Ghostbusters (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
Many of you may not realize that the original Ghostbusters movie came out in 1984, truly making it a blast from the past, and it also makes us old. Fans of the original movie(s) instantly shunned the remake, not only because of the female cast, but because of the initial trailer that seemed to bastardize everything the original movies stood for. Nonetheless, as expected, things were taken out of proportion and before you knew it, it was hard to see right from wrong. Now, we have the chance to finally see the movie ourselves, and while some comments were just, some were completely exaggerated.
Erin (Kristen Wiig) has been building up her reputation at a very respectable university, and with her having a good chance of being tenured, her life seems to be pretty much figured out. When all of a sudden a man called Ed Mulgrave (Ed Begley Jr.) shows up in her classroom asking her help against ghosts, she can’t believe her ears, as well as her eyes. It seems that her childhood friend Abby (Melissa McCarthy) published a book they wrote together during their teen years, which revolved around ghosts. Of course, she heads over to see Abby, to get it delisted, as it would compromise her career. When seeing Abby is still occupying herself with the supernatural, it’s clear she can’t help but be interested just a tiny bit, especially when Abby and Jillian (Kate McKinnon) head towards the place they could find Ed, who desperately needed help. Erin agrees to introduce the duo, if in return the book would be removed until Erin would receive her promotion.
When arriving at Aldridge mansion, Erin can’t control herself, and she decides to tag along inside, to see the supposed ghost. Before the trio knows it, they actually encounter a ghosts, which leaves Erin covered in a mucus-like slime, but quite stoked nonetheless. When a video of them goes viral, her boss finds out, and she gets fired. Same goes for her two new partners in crime, but they decide to press on nonetheless. Settling above a Chinese restaurant, hiring a secretary and eventually a fourth member, the Ghostbusters are born. Now they just have to tackle the sudden surge of ghosts in town.
Overall the pacing is fairly slow for a movie that spans around two hours, or slightly longer when you’re watching the extended version. Nonetheless, while halfway through you’re used to the somewhat slower pacing, the introduction is slightly tedious and a hard obstacle to overcome, especially for the many viewers that are already biased due to the negative attention this movie has been getting. That being said, when you finally settle in, it’ll become easier to go with the flow, and while the ending might not be such a banging finale as one would hope for, things turn a lot more satisfactory the more it progresses. Perhaps it would have been better if the total time was cut with thirty minutes, with the pacing in second gear, rather than first. Perhaps, this might be one of the key issues of the movie, which caused viewers to be generally displeased with the flick as a whole.
Looking at the acting performances in general, they aren’t bad, or atrocious like many claimed beforehand, it just feels like for the most part the wrong actresses/actors were chosen for the job at hand. In many ways, the acting performances feel perfect for a sitcom, or a Ghostbusters related series, not an actual movie that spans around two hours. Nonetheless, Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon play their roles very well, and to a certain extent Kate pays a great homage to Harold Ramis, who sadly passed away in 2014. Sadly, Melissa McCarthy is being placed in a very stereotypical role of a somewhat ‘larger’ woman, who acts excruciatingly annoying throughout the entire movie, while dumping Leslie Jones in a role that requires her to be the most stereotypical sassy black woman you’ve ever seen. The latter feels like an attempt to bring in an extra layer of humor, but in the end it’s something worthy of a sitcom that revolves around a screaming aunt, rather than a new Ghostbusters series.
After seeing the movie, we still aren’t completely sure if Chris Hemsworth was an actual addition to this movie, or if he was doing it for shits and giggles, or just needed some extra cash. Don’t get us wrong, he had his moments, but it was simply hard to see the otherwise stellar actor being reduced to a fairly insignificant role. Other than that, fans of the original movies will see a lot of fun cameos in this movie, which sometimes feel as if said actors should have gotten a bigger role, or that the movie was better created as a sequel than a reboot.
What makes this Blu-ray edition of the 2016 version of Ghostbusters interesting is that it comes with a hefty amount of special features, which are actually most of the time a lot more interesting than the movie. While many of these lengthy featurettes find themselves somewhere in the ‘making of’ genre, it’s fun to see how some scenes are shot with different lines, to see how they would turn out, how our special effects evolved over the last thirty years, how the slime effects were made, including a fun recipe to make the green slimy substance at home and many other extra features. The Chris Hemsworth feature is also fun to watch, and with ample commentaries you will find yourself understanding many of the choices made in the creation of the movie, which will probably destroy a lot of the resentful comments made by spectators. Other than that, you’ll get extremely lengthy gag reels, which are often not that funny, but it’s an added extra nonetheless.
Conclusion
This new iteration, or more precisely, interpretation had a certain amount of potential, but due to poor casting, uninspired humor and some odd story choices ended up falling rather short of what could have been a new generation of Ghostbusters to get the young generation acquainted with our childhood heroes. Nonetheless, if you toss aside your sentiments for the original films, and switch off your brains, this movie is entertaining to watch, and with the abundance of extras, it might even be interesting for Ghostbusters fans. Nonetheless, dive in with low expectations, and then you might even watch the movie with a small grin from time to time.
Ghostbusters (Blu-ray) - Movie Review,
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