Personally, I didn’t really see the need for this remake/reboot/whatever the current ‘re’ word is, and like many my heart sank when it was first announced. And it had nothing to do with the sex of the cast either. I couldn’t care less if it starred a bunch of women or a bunch of chimpanzees. Movies that look like they’re going to be closely following the original usually turn out to be pretty bad. As I’m typing this, the remake of Poltergeist springs to mind. I didn’t like it all (my review is on here) – a lazy film, trying to follow the original far too closely for the majority of it’s run time and failing dismally. I’m always happy to give things a chance though and love it when I’m proved wrong, so I was really hoping for that to happen going into this version of Ghostbusters. The first trailer was a disaster. The second trailer was a huge improvement and gave me a bit more optimism. Like many others I have a lot of love for the original, ever since my mum first picked up me and my brothers from school and took us to see it at the cinema – it just holds good memories. And when I finally made it to New York a few years ago, visiting the Hook and Ladder building was one of the big highlights for me. So this movie had to be good!
Well, I’m happy to say that this version isn’t too bad at all. I actually really liked the new team and thought they worked very well together. The early part of the movie as they’re coming together and setting themselves up as Ghostbusters was pretty funny. The ghosts we see during this part of the movie are scary enough as well to kick things off to a good start.
Then we find out exactly what’s going on with all the ghosts and why they’re suddenly appearing and things hit a bit of a lull. The villain of the movie is boring and his motives a bit pointless. How he manages to get hold of and setup all of the equipment he has is ignored. Then the mayor’s office gets involved and all of the scenes involving Andy Garcia as the mayor and all of his team are painfully unfunny.
The last act kicks things up a gear as ghosts are unleashed on New York. The array of weaponry that the team have somehow managed to assemble very quickly is put to effective use in a very entertaining and funny final battle.
Overall I thought this was great. Part of me wishes that they’d not featured so many cameos of the original cast though, and not tried to squeeze in so many elements of the original movie (Stay Puft, Slimer) as it didn’t need it – I felt it was a worthy enough Ghostbusters movie without all of that. And I’d be more than happy to see a sequel or two as well.
Web developer by day, with a movie and TV watchlist that continues to grow as much as my spare time reduces! My favourite movie is Inception and, despite what everyone says, I do not have a man-crush on Tom Cruise.
