Movie Review - Ghostbusters

Who you gonna call?

No matter how much you think the original "Ghostbusters" movie is some sort of holy writ, you owe it to yourself to see the new movie. If you're one of the 3 or 4 people who haven't seen the original, you should see it too. It's similar to the original, in fact, much of the set up is very similar, but the reason for the ghosts menacing New York is different, but satisfactory. Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig are well known and do a fine job. McCarthy plays her part a bit more subdued (although in no way actually subdued) then we've seen her before, and Wiig does a good job playing the normal person who's wandered into some kind of insane alternative reality. Her mooning over Chris Hemsworth was classic. Kate McKinnon, who we've never seen before, was fabulous as the Holtzmann character, playing the character with a barely contained insanity. Leslie Jones, who we also did not know, was pretty much a caricature, but that's the part and she did it well. Chris Hemsworth, as the ditzy secretary, was a comic revelation.

We saw the movie in a pretty full house, and there's nothing better than a joke which makes a theater full of people laugh. There were plenty of them.

Are there problems with the movie? Have you ever seen a movie without problems? The trick is to make a movie where the problems don't overwhelm the audience. My only serious problem was the rather wanton destruction of parts of New York City in the climatic final battle. Hasn't New Your suffered in enough movies? And I though they overplayed the slime. We knew it was coming so it wasn't a surprise like in the original, so they should have used it less.

All of the still living main actors from the original (with the exception of Rick Moranis) had cameo appearances, which the audience loved.  There were also a number of well-played homages to the original. I haven't seen the original in ages so I probably missed some.

You should plan to stay through the entire credits, which thankfully, aren't real long. Beginning of the credits featured a dancing Chris Hemsworth (another revelation). He's fully clothed but comes across as the best Chippendale dancer ever. At the very end is a teaser for a possible sequel.

When I first heard they were doing a re-make of "Ghostbusters" with a female cast I wasn't too interested. Not because it was going to have a female cast, it was because I figured it would end up being a pale imitation. I'm glad I saw it.