Ghostbusters (July 2016)

Official Australian release date: 14/7/16. Viewed: 15/7/16.

Director: Paul Feig

Actors: Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones

Genre: Comedy / Sci-Fi

Rating: PG

‘Ghostbusters’ is the reboot of a classic comedy everyone saw growing up, the 1984 original. This has a pretty similar plot – they’re a bunch of nerdy outcasts, with Erin (Wiig) and Abby (McCarthy) childhood-friends-turned-scientists, Holtzmann (McKinnon) as the odd engineer and Patty (Jones) as someone with a car. When the under-developed villain, Rowan (Casey), starts transporting ghosts ‘across the barrier’, with plans to unleash the “fourth cataclysm”, the Ghostbusters have to save the day against a giant ghost-thing destroying New York. Sound familiar?

Kevin (Hemsworth) is their dumb secretary and gets a few laughs, but like most of the side characters, he’s under-used and doesn’t add too much to the plot – there’s also Andy Garcia as the mayor, Charles Dance as a Professor, Matt Walsh as a Government agent, Zach Woods as a tour guide, Karan Soni as the delivery boy, and obviously Murray, Aykroyd, Hudson and Weaver appear in small cameos – almost pointlessly so. The CGI’s bright and colourful and the tone’s light throughout, even when all the ghosts are unleashed. It gets a little silly and over-the-top at the end, but wraps up neatly.

It’s not as good as Feig’s other recent films (‘Bridesmaids’, ‘The Heat’, ‘Spy’), but it does top ‘Ghostbusters II’. Plenty of jokes, with most working, except McKinnon really annoyed me as the weird one-note character. Definitely feel like Wiig could’ve had a few more jokes. The film certainly doesn’t tarnish the reputation or memory of the original – or match it for fun and adventure – but it doesn’t necessarily add a whole lot to the Ghostbusters world/franchise either.

Overall: Not as good as the original, but has its moments.

Gav's Rating: 3 stars.