Ghostbusters 2016: Definitely a Bust.

Talk about a movie with controversy. Talk about a talked about movie. Talk about a movie that sparked gender conversations. Yep, we are talking about the Ghostbusters remake. Seems like for months all we did was talk, talk, talk. Even I got sucked in and did some of the talking, as per my previous Post on this matter.

You see, this thing had people coming out in droves, not to discuss the issues surrounding film making, or the fact that Hollywood imagination has dried up and all we get now is formula RomComs, and remakes. The only good original movies left are the Superhero movies and some of them have so many reboots some of us are frankly fed up. We discussed none of that ,but instead, discussed this directors take on gender issues in film.

This movie had us all focused on the fact that it was a gender swap and not the fact that it is completely unencumbered by the original material. Material that I may refer to as we continue. Men cried out in its support because they didn’t want to appear sexist, women rallied behind it because feminism and the studio and co just sat there like…

…the poof, however, was in the pudding, and while I had to wait for said pudding to come out on DVD since I missed it in theaters, this is my review on the sour taste it left in my mouth.

That’s right this think left me very unhappy, for the simple reason that it did exactly what I figured it would do. It shifted the focus away from the things that made the original a nerd classic and focused almost entirely on the womanly plight of the women.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that there are some things that only someone in possession of a fully functional, biologically accurate set of jugs and a vagina has to go through. I fully understand that there are certain social set backs that lots of women have to endure, I understand this. I am after all a woman and have to experience these things everywhere from the supermarket, to the gaming world, to the workplace to my very home. I appreciate the plight, I really do, but I don’t let it ruin me.  All of my role models rise and thrive despite it, and I hoped this movie would do that too. Show women confident and rising above, not bogged down by it all. But it didn’t.

Instead it told the story of a set of women who ultimately wanted to gain legitimacy in a field that wasn’t taken seriously, but were plagued by sexism even more that the skepticism of the scientific community. While, ironically, they themselves exhibiting the same sexism to a gender stereotype parody. Which kind of sucks if the whole point of the movie was to rise about the sexism that the people said they were battling my making the movie in the first place.

Granted the original Ghostbusters may not have had to deal with the sexism, but they did have to deal with the skepticism. It wasn’t, as I remember it, as major a theme and it was approached with a certain amount of nerd cockiness that everyone who has ever enjoyed chemistry class knows well. These chicks didn’t have that…and it hurt me, as someone who very much enjoys chemistry class.

No, seriously, I didn’t think you could make Chris Hemsworth unsexy. I didn’t think it was possible without the help of a major fast food chain, outlawing all fitness centers and his sexy accent and a severe water outage, but this movie did it. Bastardizing the character of the Ghostbusters secretary, from a smart, witty, capable person to a husk with mush or empty space where his brains ought to be. Someone tried to tell me that it was a commentary on the way women are portrayed in film, but not even under the guise of satirical hypocrisy do I buy it. It was too blatant and overdone, to be funny.

Speaking of funny, I also didn’t know that you could take comedians of this caliber and make them so blah. Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig where completely buried under all that social statementing, so much so their humor got pretty lost. Which was rather disappointing for me. I did after all watch this movie for them, thinking, at least there will be laughs in. Alas, they were few, far between and had little to do with these clever actresses.

They even screwed up Slimer!!! And NEVER explained the significance of the slime!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What more proof do you need that this movie wasn’t really about Ghostbusting?

And don’t get me started on the most petty, washed out, generic, forgettable and again stereotypical bad guy ever. This guy, one of the weak minded man architype. And a dude is responsible for this? Ugh, give it a rest already.

OK. I’m being really harsh, so let me inject here that there were precisely two bright sparks in this movie.

Holtzman and Patty, were the best part. Holtzman was as close to Spengler, the character she was based off of, as closely as the skewed vision of this movie would let her. I appreciated that not because she was channeling her male counterpart, or because it hit my nostalgia button, because it didn’t, but because she was the only one of the scientists who seemed to really enjoy the work. For the others it was so forced, or maybe an after thought.

Patty too was pretty nice, again not channeling the original character, but bought a bit of levity and authenticity to the thing. That being said even the cameos of the original crew did nothing for me. Thrown in there, again, like some kind of after though after too many of us complained about them ruining our childhood. I swear if the 90’s could sue, the directors, writers and executives of the movie industry would be little better than homeless paupers.

All in all I can only give this thing marks for the special effects which were OK, made to the senses less than awesome by the blah that was the film, Holtzman and Patty. So…3/10, and that I give grudgingly.

Dude, next time you want to make a social commentary piece, leave the classics alone and use something you made up yourself. Your input was very not appreciated. I thank you.