Review: Ghostbusters (2016)

Oh boy. I don’t think I’ve been this nervous about writing a review since, well ever actually. Let’s start a few months ago, when the first bits of news came out that Ghostbusters was getting an all-female remake. I’ve never seen any of the original movies (gasp!) and even as a woman myself couldn’t see the need for an all-female team, and the trailers that eventually came out had me feeling pretty ‘meh’ about the whole thing. We’ve had a fair number of reboots over the last few years, and the lucky few have had mediocre reviews.  I am still horrified that you haven't seen the original Ghostbusters!!

Of course, a few days before the release, IMDB and Letterboxd users rated the movie as low as possible, before they could even have a chance to watch the movie, which honestly winds me up more than is rational. I try not to judge a book by it’s cover, but I use sites like those to get a rough idea, and on the UK release day Ghostbusters had an abysmal score of 3.7 on IMDB. With a rare Monday night free and cheaper tickets at my local cinema, I thought ‘screw it’ and went to see it on the opening night.  Now I had seen the opposite, I hadn't looked as early as Allie so the annoying pre-reviewers had been overpowered by an array of positive reviews.  This unfortunately led to countless people coming out of the woodwork to state that Sony clearly had brought their reviews!! argh - why are people so annoying?!

Out of the Ghostbuster ladies, I’m only really familiar with two of them, Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig, who were brilliant together in Bridesmaids (2011), so I had a little hope. I know Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones are from Saturday Night Live, but we don’t get that show here in the UK, although something clicked half way through the movie when I recognised Leslie Jones as the technician who shouted at Kylo Ren in the Undercover Boss sketch, which led to me laughing out loud during a non-funny part of the movie.

Um, I gotta say as well, it certainly is something spectacular when Chris Hemsworth isn’t the hottest blonde in the room. Where has Kate McKinnon been my whole life? I had such a lady boner crush on her the whole time. She’s aloof, gorgeous, and fierce, and everything I want to be!  You may have to fight me for her, she was amazing!!

Anyway, I’m going off topic now. I think what I’m really trying to do is stall, because what I need to say is I really, really enjoyed watching Ghostbusters. Maybe it’s because I’ve never seen the original, maybe it’s because I was expecting something even worse than Independence Day: Resurgence, but it doesn’t matter because I had a blast. The jokes were funny, the special effects were hella-cool, and those ladies kicked ass. 

I have to disagree with Allie, it can't be because she hasn't seen the original because I have seen, and loved the original Ghostbusters and I still loved this.  It was a film of it's own, it wasn't a carbon copy of the originals but had enough easter eggs to keep me happy!  I feel like Allie needs to go and watch the originals and then watch the new one again and it will be like a whole new movie for her!

Chris Hemsworth playing a goofy receptionist was an absolute stroke of genius. He got guaranteed laughs every time he was on screen, but nothing was funnier than his interview for the job. I really don’t want to ruin the joke but I’m laughing just thinking about it. I wish I could get away with being as bad at my job as he is, though. Admittedly, I’ve pretended there’s a really bad line on the phone and hung up when someone on the other end is making absolutely no sense.   This was the first gag I mentioned to Allie when I had seen the film and spent Saturday evening (a bit tipsy) repeating it over and over while laughing hysterically.  I wish I could tell the joke because at this point this whole paragraph is a bit vague!

Look, I’m off topic again! I don’t know what else to say other than I hope people at least give this a chance. I’ll give the original Ghostbusters movies a watch at some point so I have some kind of comparison, and maybe that’ll change my mind, I definitely saw Jurassic World in a different light after finally watching Jurassic Park. And if you hate the cast, hate the new effects, maybe it’s worth watching for some pretty awesome cameos? I didn’t get them all of course, but I could make a pretty good guess when one showed up by everyone else’s reactions. Wait, what am I even talking about? Forget those guys, the best cameo (which isn’t even a cameo, it’s a small role) is DOPINDER. Dopinder, guys!!  This is where Allie lost me, the cameos throughout the whole film made me squeal and whack my Dad in the arm, I didn't even realise that Dopinder was Dopinder until Allie told me afterwards!!

I have to repeat that I loved this entirely as a movie of it's own.  The action was great and the comedy was really. At one point I laughed so much that I had tears in my eyes and missed about 3 other gags that followed.  Chris Hemsworth and Kate McKinnon were by far the highlights, I was a bit disappointed that they didn't utilise Melissa McCarthy's comedy genius more but she can't always be the centre of attention! Honestly I'm glad for that, she's driving me crazy lately and I was worried she'd be as annoying in this as she was in The Boss. She makes such a great supporting cast member, it's when she's the lead that it all goes wrong for me.

Oh, and stay till the end of the credits! Not just for the dancing, I promise, there’s actually a proper scene right at the end.