Ghostbusters is back (sort of). Columbia Pictures has released a reboot of the popular franchise that starred Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, the late Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson as the Ghostbusters. The new film stars Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones.
In this new story, physicists Abby Yates (McCarthy) and Erin Gilbert (Wiig) have written a book that says that ghosts are real. Erin disowns the book and becomes a Professor at Columbia University. Abby continues her paranormal work along with brilliant engineer Jillian Holtzmann (McKinnon). Erin learns that Abby has republished their book which now threatens her shot at tenure, she makes a deal with Abby that if she agrees to help with an investigation, Abby will pull the book.
However, things get bad when a video of the investigation ends up online causing Erin to lose her shot at tenure — and her job. Through a series of unfortunate events, the trio end up unemployed and open their own paranormal investigation business above a restaurant in New York’s Chinatown. They meet Patty Tolan (Jones) when they’re called to investigate a ghost sighting in the subway. Patty joins the team and they later hire handsome, yet dim-witted receptionist Kevin (Chris Hemsworth) who — I might add — is the funniest thing in the movie.
I like the movie for the most part. The action scenes are good, and the actors do the best they can with the script, but I didn’t particularly like the writing. I’ve seen Spy, also written and directed by Paul Feig, and I thought it was hilarious. This movie only made me chuckle occasionally except for the scenes with Chris Hemsworth. He plays the perfect dumb blond. The women, whom I believe are the funniest women around, seem to be restrained in their comedy. I feel that they should have been able to write their own dialogue. Don’t get me wrong, I actually do like the movie, I just think that it could have been funnier and had fewer lulls in the action.
It’s not as bad a movie as some critics would have you believe, but it did have the potential to be so much more.
