I'm a big fan of ghosts and haunted house movies. When they're scary, they're wonderful. When, they're funny, they can be charming. When they can be funny and scary, it can be a miracle. Unlike "Beetlejuice" and the original "Ghostbusters," this movie is a disappointment. It could have had so much potential. I really tried to like this movie. It had a few funny moments, some memorable quotes, the special effects are far superior and most of the cast are passable. However, the major problem I have with it is that it's just a retread of the original plot. Do you mean to tell me that in the years we've had since with TV shows exploring the paranormal that we can't make an entirely new "Ghostbusters" without just ripping off the original plot, inserting a few vomit and slime jokes and just completely embarrassing the cast with moronic lines and idiotic scenes. The best part of the first movie is that it was hilarious for being played straight; the humor coming from the characters reacting to each other and the phenomenon. Also, the main cast had a purpose. Murray was the cynic, Aykroyd was the heart, Ramis the brain and Hudson the everyman. Sigourney Weaver was the straight man, and Moranis was the comic foil. In this movie, the cast comes across as someone's dirty little fantasy as they somehow replicate piece by piece the same inventions and create the exact same work uniforms as the first movie. It's almost as if the characters saw the first movie and said, "Well, let's make one of those that works and dress like them too." Now, I like Kristen Wiig; she's one of the movie's most likable redeeming features, but Melissa McCarthy is just woefully miscast, ruining every scene she's in. She is just freaking annoying, but then that's what happens when you cast an actress who plays the same character in virtually every movie in which she stars. She really might have worked better in Kate McKinnon's role and vice versa, and then there's the tall Sasquatchy actress, I just can't recall her name, I'll just call her "Patty," but she also seems miscast when she should have been playing one of the demonic entities this movie is passing off as ghosts. The problem is the good jokes are immediately followed by bad jokes, the so-called ghosts look more like "Scooby Doo" villains and the so-called villain is tacked on like as afterthought. There is absolutely no follow-up to his appearance, and his so-called apocalypse looks more like just some annoying inconvenience. It's just incredibly boring. The worst part is that Chris Hemsworth is woefully underused and embarrassed by playing an affable idiot that by all rights would be in a special school than holding a job. It would have been funnier if they had treated him like how guys have been treating women for the last fifty years. For an interesting premise, the plot focuses too hard on trying to be funny than staying on plot, the jokes are predictable before they even land and some of them don't even land; maybe if they had stayed on the plot instead of playing up the jokes. The cameos of the original cast are kind of pointless; the one by Ozzy Osbourne is really embarrassing for him. The plot has holes in it that don't make sense. (How does Rowan know he'll become a ghost? He could have gone directly into the afterlife.) For that matter, the paranormal facts in this movie are non-existent – it just seemingly makes stuff up as it goes along. At least the original didn't stray off-field as much as this one does.
Review of Ghostbusters: Answer the Call
