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If you mention the new Ghostbusters movie to a group of people, you’re likely to immediately get some grumbling. It’s the most disliked trailer on YouTube, and while the common refrain online is that it’s because people can’t stand the thought of an all-female Ghostbusters squad, the rationale I’m hearing most often is: “I don’t want to see it because it will ruin my childhood.”
That’s often followed by citing previous reboots-gone-wrong: Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (for those who can’t stand Michael Bay flicks), Star Trek, G.I. Joe. The thing is, would you really want a movie that exactly replicates the series you loved as a child, repeating it to a T? It’d be boring, and the jokes would probably fall flat. Having women in the lead roles, and all-new Ghostbusters in general, takes the concept you love, imagining it in a whole new way. What would happen if four different people, with their thoughts/feelings/idiosyncracies, had to throwdown against some Ectoplasm-spewing spectres?
If you can accept a different Batman every five years, you can give these Ghostbusters a chance. And it’s really only your gain if you do. The movie pokes fun at itself and its characters, and that self-awareness only adds to its charm. It doesn’t try to be serious, or unseat the original film; it does its own thing, and it does it remarkably well.
What really works with this film is that every character has a distinct personality and owns it, from Kristen Wiig’s awkwardly stiff and straitlaced physicist Erin Gilbert, to Leslie Jones’s straight-talking, wise-cracking Patty Tolan. Chris Hemsworth’s getting a lot of credit for being surprisingly funny as the quartet’s insufferably incompetent receptionist (he improvised large parts of the interview scene, apparently), and while he has some great lines, Kate McKinnon stole the show for me. As questionably-all-there engineer Jillian Holtzmann, McKinnon brings just the right amount of weird; she’s unexpected, and that unpredictability makes every scene better — especially when she’s dancing with blow torches about halfway through the movie. (No spoilers; just look out for it.)
Maybe I found the movie so entertaining because I had such low expectations. Everyone around me kept snubbing it, so I walked in simply looking for a break from the July heat, and instead, found myself walking out of the theater eagerly awaiting the (inevitable?) sequel.
Considering some theaters have started offering weekday specials — like $9 movies after 9 p.m., which in NYC is practically half-price — it could be a great way to bust out of a Monday rut. Just saying.
