The classic 1984 comedy "Ghostbusters" gets a reboot in a new film that's headed this time by a female cast in the lead roles. The movie starts off promisingly with a deadpan tour of a haunted mansion and Kristen Wiig denying that she wrote a paranormal book, just so she can get tenure at the university where she works.
Once Wiig sees a ghost and joins forces with Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and ultimately Leslie Jones, the movie glides along for a while as the new team of saviors tries to rid New York of pesky ghosts. But it also becomes less interesting.
The big problem is that writer/director Paul Fieg, who did such a superb job with "Bridesmaids" and "Spy," runs out of gas early on here. He’s sort of stuck with having the story parallel to the original and instead of coming up with genuinely fresh, new, funny bits, he relies on overproduced special effects. There’s not much of a plot or comedy at all in the last act, just big budget CGI sequences of Times Square being demolished, something we’ve seen in many other movies and to better effect.
The bottom line is that there's just not a lot of laughs here and it’s way too long. The best parts of the movie are the original song, which gets played occasionally, cameos by practically all the original stars, who play different characters than they did in the first film, and Chris Hemsworth as a dimwitted secretary, who WAS funny, but even that gag got played out after some time.
The fault lies not with the new cast; it’s the lackluster script and the mediocre movie that they’re saddled with. Who you gonna call if you want to be entertained by "Ghostbusters?" We say call up the 1984 movie for a better time.
Neil Rosen’s Big Apple Rating:
Two Apples