So I saw the movie this evening.
For the sake of transparency, I have no great love for the original movie, it's a fun enough 80's romp, but is outclassed on just about every level by the same stable's Blues Brothers. Conversely, I dislike Feig's brand of humour, and his inability to open his mouth without sticking his foot in it.
So hopefully, this is fairly objective.
The overwhelming feeling I had afterwards, was of a slightly better than average straight to DVD movie. Obviously the effects rank above that, but that was definitely the vibe.
The screenplay was sloppy, disjointed and merely followed enough join-the-dots points to pin on a framework of scenes that felt like the crew and actors turned up on set every day with a 'what are we gonna shoot today'? ethos. The characters were thinly sketched at best, you learn next to nothing about their backstories or relationship dynamics, so it was hard to develop any attachment to them.
Mckinnon at least gave Holtzman that off-beat weirdness that has been much commented-on. Without it the character is given virtually nolthing to define her other than 'tech-girl'. Jones was pretty decent, given what she was given to work with. She brought some enthusiam and energy that seemed lacking in the rest of the cast. Wiig did her usual nervous insecure chick stuff and McCarthy did child-woman who falls over. Those two characters were pretty much a wash.
And oh lordy, they technobabble! It goes on and on in so many scenes, without ever coming close to even partly convincing you that any of these women are scientists. The script, or choice of actors, truly botched that one, I didn't buy it for a minute.
Hemsworth, on the other hand, simply isn't a character at all. He's a running gag that gets old pretty quickly. Curiously enough, about the only gag that got a smirk out of me was the Mike Hat gag, which comes so out of left field, with an almost pythonesque delivery.
Which brings me to the comedy...there are few of those left field nonsense gags that are sprinkled through the movie, mostly surrounding Holttzman and Kevin, which was the only stuff that worked for me. It's not even that there were a bunch of gags that fell flat, more like a lot of stuff that I wasn't even sure was supposed to be funny.
Going back to the DVD movie comparison - everything felt small and rushed, even the final battle failed any effort to appear epic. It doesn't seem liked Feig has enough experience of staging action or CG heavy scenes, it all felt pretty cramped unimaginativeley choreographed. The effects were competent, nothing great, nothing horrible.
I kind of liked that in this iteration the government were actually supporting them and using them to face all the danger, then continually debunking and ridiculing them 'so no-one realises ghosts are real and panics' That was a fairly decent gag, and at least something new.
Now, unless I missed something, I'm gonna take a shot at the common 'hater' accusation that they couldn't even get their continuity right in terms of the weapons capturing ghosts at the start, then killing them at the end. Even Devin Faraci's love fest claimed this.
When they first try out the Proton Packs in the subway, they are underpowered, and they have problem containing the ghosts. They then get a power surge from the train line, that blows the ghost they are trying to trap into itty-bitty bits.
Later in the movie, Holtzman provides them all with weaponised gadgets - grenades, handguns, the boxing glove thingy. When the big battle kicks off, she tells them not to forget their sidearms. In the battle scene, they clearly use their Proton packs to ensnare the ghosts, and the weapons to finish 'em off. Not sure how so many seemed to miss this.
As for the fabled (groan) misandry...get the hell out of here! I know most of the MRA's raising this one haven't even seen the movie, but this one is just a nonsense. The movie kind of mocks everyone tbh, and if you are seeing this, it's entireley in your own mind.
Oh and Rowan......I got nothing. Just the most forgettable generic villain ever.
So overall, another negative review. I didn't hate it. It was just...there. Another rushed into production tentpole that didn't take the time to figure out what it wanted to be. Another poor result of an industry that believes the way to make movies is not a solid, well developed script, but a set of notes and a belief that everything can be created in edits and reshoots. It can't.
