If there's something strange in your neighborhood, who are you gonna call, "Ghostbusters". Well, it's reboot time in the neighborhood, like we haven't seen these before. Hollywood is really losing a grip on originality when approximately a quarter of the films in a season are reboots or sequels. Com'on guys, the 1984 version wasn't even that great of a film, so you make yet another one?30 years after "Ghostbusters" took the world by storm, this franchise makes its long-awaited reboot. This is a somewhat different take to the supernatural comedy, joined by some of the funniest actors working today.
Two paranormal researchers, Erin Gilbert and Abby Yates (Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy) respectively, join forces with a nuclear engineer, Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon) and a subway attendant, Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones) to fight off a slew of ghosts that have invaded New York City. They eventually hire a receptionist to answer the many calls they've been getting due to ghosts sightings. So they decide to hire the hunky, nice but a bit daft, Kevin (Chris Hemsworth) to fill that position. The four eventually come face-to-face with an evil entity who can control human beings. So they're off to answer the call.
Others to round out the cast are Charles Dance as Harold Filmore, Ed Begley Jr. as Ed Mulgrave who initially hire them, Neil Casey as Rowan North, Bill Murray as Martin Heiss, a skeptic of ghosts, Andy Garcia as Mayor Bradley, Cecily Strong as Jennifer Lynch, assistant of the mayor, Michael Kenneth Williams as Agent Hawkins, Karan Soni as Bennie, Steve Higgins as Dean and Zach Woods as Tour Guide.
This was effortlessly directed by Paul Feig ("Life Sold Separately" '97, "I Am David" '03, "Early Bird" (TV movie) '05, "Unaccompanied Minors" '06, "Ronna & Beverley" (TV movie) '09, "Bridesmaids" '11, "The Heat" '13, "People in New Jersey" (TV movie) '13, "Spy" '15) plus different TV series. The staging and pacing in this was spot on and every actor used seemed to be at ease with their respective characters. This guy knows comedy. If you want to see more of his work, "The Heat 2" has been announced. It was wittily written by Katie Dippold and Feig based on the 1984 film, "Ghostbusters" directed by Ivan Reitman (who produced this version) and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. Even though I sounded like I was basically grilling this film in the preface, and even though I didn't like the original so I was looking for a bad film here, with all objectivity, this film did surprise me. It didn't have the same subplot as the original which definitely improved it. The only similarity between the two versions was that there are two sets of ghostbusters, otherwise they are completely different. This is what made this version worth seeing along with Chris Hemsworth's daffy receptionist, Kevin and seeing Hemsworth in a comedy which he's very good at. Of course, it goes without saying that the visual effects predominantly created by SPI (Sony Pictures Imageworks), MPC (Moving Picture Company) and Iloura were absolutely seamless. Also, it was nostalgic to see Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts in cameo roles-- taking us back to the day.
Obviously, this is total fantasy at its finest with all the amazing visuals, fun performances, and plenty of action that is what the summer flick is all about. Visually, it's like the original "Ghostbusters" on steroids and to make it even bigger-than-life, you can also see it on an IMAX format. Talk about a popcorn film!
Out of 4 Stars: 3.5 Rated: PG-13 116mins.
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