There’s an elephant in the room with a a particular SJW/sexism/politically correct insanity twist, so let’s get that out of the way: This film is not one of those silly over the top “oh I can do it because I’m a girl” type movies. Their genders don’t matter, which is amazing considering how the film was marketed. The initial marketing was completely out of line with what the film ended up being. Actually, I take that back, the blurb above it from today’s version of the Amazon listing of the film, and it’s still completely wrong. The Ghostbusters do not return, there is no triumphant “hey we’ve been gone for 20 years, how’s it going” story line, in this film, they completely reboot the series and ignore the previous two movies. Not in a smart way like Star Trek (the old stuff is still there, just in an alternate dimension) or Star Wars (it’s all still there, but here’s a new story that looks exactly like our first story), but in a silly way that asks the audience to disregard years of hope and fandom. They had the opportunity to pull the same BS that Ghostbuster II did, where everyone just stopped believing in ghosts and these four new ghostbusters are the only ones that still believe, or independently find out about the ghosts among us. Oh well, opportunity missed.
Luckily, that’s the worst thing I can say about the movie. Humor and story are on par with Ghostbusters II, and the acting and special effects are about what you would expect from a summer blockbuster movie that deals with ghosts. That is to say, it’s all watchable once or twice but isn’t going to stand up to repeated viewings. Surprisingly though, I think I’d rather re-watch Ghostbusters (2016) than re-watch Independence Day: Resurgence. Additionally, the cameos were pretty weak, Billy Murrey’s being the worst and Ernie Hudson’s being the best. Dan Akroid’s was somewhere in the middle with just a touch of fourth wall breaking that I wasn’t exactly thrilled with.
At the end of the day, I suggest you check it out in theaters, they’ve set up a good universe with room to grow, and it was a good movie as long as you ignore the fact that there were previous movies. My favorite parts all included Slimer, not sure what that says about me or the movie.
