Reviews

I understand that "Ambulance" is meant to be an action flick, but it seems we deviated quite a bit from the Danish original for the sake of the director's style.

It is indeed visually stunning but to a degree that you feel some shots only exist because Michael Bay has the tech and tools, the director cut allegedly contains three more hours of 360/drone footage (just kidding, but not unlikely). That's the good part.

At its core, the movie is just an hour too long, the plot is too much of a stretch: How does it make any sense to paint your escape vehicle green to stand out again after you staged multiple identical ambulances to confuse authorities during the chase? That's just an example of many questionable, unreasonable and unrealistic scenes and decision-making in this script.

Some praise Gyllenhall's performance, he certainly made the best out of the weak material but it still feels a bit like Nic Cage overacting in his 90s/2000s action flicks. No interesting dialogue, no chemistry between actors, even the "Stockholm syndrome" suffered by the female medic isn't convincing because you just never feel it. The side characters like the FBI agent or other police staff are way too cliché and even the main villain's brother doesn't add much on an emotional level, even though there should be tension between the good soldier and the thoroughbred criminal. But no, he just rolls along with it for 99 percent of the time.

I saw this as a free-TV premiere on a Sunday evening and still it felt like a waste of time, compared to consuming random YouTube suggestions for two hours.

You will not like The Rookie if you expect a realistic procedural police show. I'd say, the first season tries to show some real-world police work during the rookie training phase but soon opts for over-the-top pace, action, unrealistic career paths and corny/stupid sideplots. I just don't believe that LAPD officers within a single division have that many shootings, terror incidents and high-profile operations within 5-6 years of duty. If that was the case, the whole LAPD had suffered more than 220 recorded fatalities since the 1870s, I presume...

But You may The Rookie it if you just want to be entertained. Production value is indeed high, there is lots of high-paced action paired with many memorable/relatable characters, and I think that's what keeps me watching and even overshadows terribly annoying sidecharacters such as "Skiptracer Randy" (even for a German native)

Admittedly, as 80's or 90's child, after watching the trailer and following the social buzz around it, you could instantly hate this as another franchise which was sacrificed for creating a modern rip-off that even breaks with original (male) cast and characters.

For some reason, I still gave it a chance, maybe because there's not too much must-see movies around in summer months and I thought it could be funny if I just see it as a standalone- movie not having to care with all that Ghostbusters legacy.

And surprisingly, it did a pretty, pretty good job in entertaining me, nothing more, nothing less...

The female cast in general did a pretty good job in playing their quite diverse characters, their performances ranging from okay-ish to insanely funny - I really fell with in love with Kate McKinnon and her playing the bats**t crazy Jillian Holtzmann.

Despite of what you've heard or read before, its clearly not a feminist version of the original - way too many stereotype jokes pulled off, some even trying too hard ("That stuff went everywhere..."). In general, Ghostbusters goes for every potential joke, goof and stereotype, but most of the time, it just scores. Maybe too much, but not for me... sometime I appreciate a high pace of stupidity and can deal with a simple plot and several inconsistencies. I really had to laugh quite hard and absolutely think it was worth the money - I'd watch it anytime again, at least on Free-TV.

Regardless of the character overhaul, it still picks up most of the traditional elements of the original movie in terms of equipment, locations and even ghost characters, maybe it even tries too hard with lots of references and many original cast appearances. Could be an excuse for the female cast thing, though....

Some also complained about the cheap CGI but I think they were clearly above average, in ghost detail animations as well as on New York City total shots when hell finally breaks loose.

To sum it up: Get rid of expectations, anger about the remake and any feminist prejudice and just enjoy a 'good clean fun' summer blockbuster - there's still more love and detail in it than in the new Die Hard movies.