The GHOSTBUSTERS trailer on YouTube is the most disliked video ever on the site. However, I wanted to reserve judgement about the movie since it comes with impressive credentials: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon and Chris Hemsworth are all great comedians and actors. The director behind GHOSTBUSTERS, Paul Feig, was the creative mind behind BRIDESMAIDS. In short, these people know comedy.
Unfortunately, while they may know comedy they didn’t quite hit the mark this time around. It could have been the high expectations going into this update/remake, or it could be that magic just doesn’t always strike in the same place. Regardless, GHOSTBUSTERS missed the mark.
Tone was the biggest issue for GHOSTBUSTERS and if it had been ironed out then a lot of the other issues would have been addressed. While it was clearly a comedy, it also asked viewers to respect the main characters as impressively credentialed scientists and the way those two aspects of the movie were handled made them incongruous with each other.
Kristen Wiig plays Dr. Erin Gilbert, a ditzy klutz, which was hard to reconcile with the her impressive background as a doctor of science at Columbia University. Kate McKinnon’s Dr. Jillian Holtzman was the most confusing since she alternated coming across as intelligent and completely strange. I realize that in real life people can easily embody more than one of these qualities. But, in a movie like this which doesn’t seek to flesh out well-rounded characters it felt like they were trying to go in too many directions at once.
I was disappointed by Melissa McCarthy’s Dr. Abby Yates as well. While I’m not generally a fan of Melissa McCarthy’s brand of physical comedy—which, incidentally, didn’t flow as strongly through GHOSTBUSTERS as I’d expected–I respect her acting ability since she commits wholeheartedly to all of her characters. This time around, though, I got the impression that she didn’t believe in what she was doing anymore than I did. Strangely, the only time I really bought her role was during a part that’s in the trailer when she’s possessed by a ghost.
There were two things I loved in particular. First was the music and how the original GHOSTBUSTERS theme song progressed from the original one to a more modern version as the movie went on The second thing I really liked were the effects, the ones at the very beginning in particular.
For more details about GHOSTBUSTERS, including a more in-depth analysis about the music and effects, as well as an exclusive interview with original GHOSTBUSTER Ernie Hudson, take a look below:
