Ghostbusters (4/5 Stars)

This Ghostbusters is not a remake (in which the same characters do the same things) or a sequel (in which the same characters do different things) but a reboot. It has the same name and the same overall structure but different characters that do different things. For example, in the first Ghostbusters (1984), the crew look for office space and stumble upon an old fire station in Tribeca, New York. The place is a piece of junk in a terrible neighborhood but it is thankfully cheap enough for them. In the reboot, the new crew looks for office space and is shown the same fire station. This time they are told it costs $21,000 a month in rent.

It’s a good joke and one this movie tells many times. However, doing so reveals the weirdness of the movie. See if you can wrap your head around this. In the 2016 version of Ghostbusters, the 1984 Ghostbusters don’t exist. That in and of itself is normal for a reboot. What is weird is that the reboots wrings every callback opportunity possible out of the earlier film. Some examples: The Ghostbusters logo is “serendipitiously” created by a graffiti artist, the original cast shows up in cameos and quote the original’s catchphrases, and a giant stay puff marshamallow man is fought in the climatic scene. The movie treats these situations as if the movie knows about the original film, but the characters in the 2016 version don’t know about the original film. So there’s a disconnect between what the audience experiences and what the characters experience because the audience remembers the thing that is being called back in a scene but none of the characters in that scene remember it. Like I said, weird.

It is fun to hear all these callbacks but I would posit that it hurts this movie’s ability to be a stand-alone movie because to understand these many jokes one would need to see the original movie. A viewer who has not seen the original would probably be confused as to why the movie would make such a big deal about a callback moment when the characters themselves, by definition, can’t. To draw a contrast, take the movie “Creed.” That was a reboot too in a way. But the new character existed in the same time universe as the original so when it made callbacks it made sense for the characters to feel the weight of them. Those moments do not work in this reboot (if you take the time to think about it) and that is this Ghostbusters oddest and biggest mistake.

It’s an odd mistake because this movie probably didn’t need the callbacks and nostaligic jokes. This movie is a “Bridesmaids” reunion, a movie that will be a classic once I convince everyone. It is directed by Paul Feig and stars both Kristin Wiig and Melissa McCarthy. Kristin Wiig continues to impress. She has been cast in this movie as the straight man (she is a scientist at Columbia trying to distance herself from a ghost book she co-wrote with Melissa so she can gain tenure) so she has not as many opportunities to be funny but that doesn’t stop her from having the movie’s funniest moment in a restaurant freaking out in front of the mayor. She should be funnier more times but this is not really her fault, as I will explain later.

Melissa McCarthy continues to be not as funny to me as she apparently is to everyone else. I would compare her to Zach Galifinakis. She rose to stardom in a very well written supporting role, which has been hard to translate into mainstream comedic stardom. What seems to happen, just like Zach, is that most of her funny moments come about not through chracter revelations but from non-sequitor asides, quite a few of which distract from the narrative flow of the movie. There is one more thing and this actually does happen to do with her gender. Melissa McCarthy is fat but won’t do fat jokes. This distinguishes her from every male of ample gut that calls himself a comedian. Her writers won’t do it also (here that is Katie Dippold and Paul Feig) and it leads to some unbelievable situations, like in “The Heat” where she is cast as the sexually vigorous and attractive one opposite to Sandra Bullock of all people. Unfortuately for our politically correct culture, fat jokes will always be funny because (obesity epidemic due to subsidized corn syrup excepted) it is fundamentally true that they reveal character (unlike say racial jokes or misogynistic jokes). And jokes that reveal character are and will always be the best ones. Melissa McCarthy’s pride ignores this to her own peril as a comedian. It is about time for her to own it and join the big boys of comedy (Rodney Dangerfield, John Candy, John Belushi, Zero Mostel, Jack Black, Jim Gaffigan, Jason Alexander, to name but a few).

The revelation in this movie is Kate McKinnon. She is hilarious. I’ve known her a little bit from Saturday Night Live (she is probably going to blow up big time impersonating Hillary Clinton this fall) but have never seen her in a movie. She reminds me of the early freewheeling zaniess of Jim Carrey in a 5’5” frame. Making her more fun is that she is in charge of the really dangerous equipment. She does a dance at one point with blowtorches. Classic McKinnon.

The fourth is Leslie Jones. She fills the Ernie Hudson role and then some. In fact she shows up earlier, has more jokes, and says more smart things (she reads lots of nonfiction and knows all sorts of things about the city) than Hudson ever did in the original. It doesn’t matter. This Ghostbusters, unlike the first, is getting shit for not giving the black woman a role as a scientist, as opposed to the (apparently undignified) job as an MTA worker. I’m not sure what Ernie Hudson was doing in the first Ghostbusters. He shows up three quarters of the way through and then doesn’t really do anything in it besides postulate about the end-of-the-world, but if he was absent from that one and Leslie Jones (who is only here because of Ernie’s presence in the first) was absent from this one, the only thing missing would be the liberal outrage.

(I’ve been trying to figure out why this sort of controversy irks me so much. I can only ascribe it to what I would consider an unfounded and pathetic sense of entitlement amongst those that are outraged (not just black people of course, I remember Mahnola Dargis of the NYTimes complaining about it too.) Its unfounded because to tell a good story, even one with paranormal elements, it helps to set it in a realistic context. I think it is fair to say that a black person in NYC in 2016 is more likely to work for the MTA than for Columbia University as a scientist. If that is a problem, it is a problem for the real world. It is not a detriment to Ghostbusters to merely reflect reality. That is to say the solution to this problem should be to fix it in the real world, not insist that a movie project falseness. Its pathetic because (and I shudder to accuse people of this) it insists that a person’s self-esteem comes from how they see other people who look like them are portrayed in movies. It should be a basic thing taught to all five-year-olds that movies should not dictate how one feels about themselves. To say Ghostbusters, of all movies, made you feel less than, well, that’s just, it’s just one of the saddest things I could possibly hear someone say.)

The largest difference between the original and the reboot has to be the extraordinary progression of digital effects in movies. The comparison is a good reminder that being able to do anything with computers does not necessarily make it better than the old cheap way. The special effects in the original were crappy but they had thought in them and quite a few of them were jokes. In the reboot, the effects are so big that it is damn near impossible for them to be comedic. There is a big action sequence at the end in which the ghosts of New York City past attack the four ghostbusters. It is notable for its lack of laughs while being great to look at. Roger Ebert made the observation that the original movie was an exception to the general rule that big special effects can wreck a comedy. He explained:

“Special effects require painstaking detail work. Comedy requires spontaneity and improvisation; or at least that’s what is should feel like, no matter how much work has gone into it…rarely has a movie this expensive provided so many quotable lines.”

The suits in charge of the reboot have, like so many recent movies, used big budget spectacle, nostalgic throwbacks, and political correctness (where are the ghost hookers of Time Square in the climatic battle? Why are they fighting pilgrims instead?) as a crutch in the place of character, creativity, and originality. The tragedy is that all the ingredients for greatness are here but they have not been given space to breathe and grow. In the meantime it’s good enough. Perhaps the sequel will do a better job at making the apocalypse work for the comedy and not the other way around. At least there should be less callbacks.