Columbia Pictures

Columbia Pictures

Columbia Pictures

Columbia Pictures



Columbia Pictures





Columbia Pictures

The original Ghostbusters came out around the same time as Real Genius, Weird Science, and Revenge of the Nerds. Those ‘80s films happened to share a theme: geek underdogs triumph over bullies and idiots while inventing bizarre contraptions. In 2016, of course, geeks who started a small tech company in a tiny loft space would be showered with venture capital rather than scorn.

So it's a good thing that the new Ghostbusters film remixes the idea of geeks in tan jumpsuits hunting down poltergeists. Rather than try to recapture the exact glory of the original Ghostbusters, this new movie reflects how geek culture—and our relationship with the paranormal—has changed. That in turn is what makes it worthy to bear the name Ghostbusters.

I'll admit that I was apprehensive about the idea of a new Ghostbusters film. It's a "reboot" of one of the all-time great science fiction/fantasy comedies, up there with Back to the Future, so it had a lot to live up to. The trailers didn't look great, and I know I’m not the only one fatigued by Hollywood's compulsion to remake everything, from RoboCop to Total Recall. Plus Spy, the previous collaboration between Ghostbusters Director Paul Feig and star Melissa McCarthy, didn't wow me, even though I liked their other films, Bridesmaids and The Heat.

A new kind of underdog

But the new Ghostbusters won me over, largely thanks to a strong ensemble cast that creates a brand new set of memorable characters instead of trying to recapture Venkman and Spengler. While the new film is not in the same league as the original, it does manage to stand on its own due to a series of crazy-fun set pieces. But this movie also has a clever spin on the concept: this time around, our heroes are underdogs because they believe in ghosts, not because they're doing weird science per sé.

This makes total sense. Even as the "downtrodden geek" theme has gotten dated, the notion of paranormal investigators has blown up since 1984. By now, everyone is used to seeing green-tinged shaky-cam ghost footage on networks like SyFy, and the new Ghostbusters are immediately seen as part of that tradition.

This time around, Kristen Wiig plays Erin, a physicist who is trying to go respectable after having co-authored a book on the paranormal in her youth—only to have her ghost-seeking past catch up with her. McCarthy plays Abby, Erin's childhood friend who never stopped looking for ghosts. Kate McKinnon comes close to stealing the movie as Jillian, the maniac who builds all of the dangerous hardware for the Ghostbusters. And Leslie Jones plays Patty, the fourth Ghostbuster (who's sadly stuck with the same thankless "African-American layperson" role as Ernie Hudson in the original, but she makes the most of it thanks to serious comedic chops).

Without giving too much away, one reason the film works as well as it does is because Wiig convincingly sells an arc in which her character starts out wanting to be taken seriously as a proper scientist, only to embrace her ghost-investigator past. Her character’s emotional journey anchors the film's gags and set pieces, and viewers will empathize with her once she begins to be seen as a nutcase again instead of as a real scientist.

Less gender squabbles, more charm

Meanwhile, the 21st century Ghostbusters film does well not to dwell on its casting decisions. I was half expecting a metafictional storyline in which sexist dudes question whether Erin and Abby can really be scientists, but the film almost entirely sidesteps that question. Characters in the film mostly question their credentials because they're scientists who believe in ghosts; the only exceptions are a couple of on-the-nose gags about recent Internet controversies, which are breezy and played well by the cast.

Meanwhile, the new Ghostbusters is charming—which is probably the main quality it needed to have. The 1984 version still has a twinkle in its eye, even when Bill Murray is being a sleaze or Dan Aykroyd is dreaming about ghost sex. The silliness of ghostly apparitions, along with the manic glee with which our heroes race around with nuclear accelerators on their backs and test out crazily dangerous toys, are key ingredients in the Ghostbusters formula, and this film more than does them justice.

Some of the film's humor does fall flat here and there, particularly running gags that overstay their welcome. Feig and his stars are adept at slapstick, but this movie requires them to do slapstick with big CG apparitions, and that works better in some sequences than in others. In a few moments, the CG ghosts feel like they're not quite there—and I couldn't help but feel like one major advantage of the original Ghostbusters was its mostly practical effects that the stars could bounce off of.

That said, the CG effects in the film still have a pulpy, silly feel thanks to satisfying transparency and particle effects that you’ll rarely see in most modern, explosion-first CGI efforts. (We won’t spoil one of the cheesy-yet-tasteful screen effects you’ll see with the new ghosts, other than to recommend attending a 3D screening if you can.) Plus, some of the ghosts are played by actual actors who were on set with the other performers. Add to that some entertaining new ghost-fighting toys and—there’s no better way to put it—badass action sequences (in which McKinnon particularly shines), and you can rest assured that, for the most part, you won’t be disappointed by the film’s visuals.

All in all, the new Ghostbusters was always going to be the second-best film in the franchise. (It would have to be pretty awful to come in below Ghostbusters 2.) And yet, this movie comes as a mostly pleasant surprise. Its characters are memorable enough and its humor is sparkling enough that it more than earns the right to be called Ghostbusters. The best I can say is that this movie made me believe these four brand-new characters were the Ghostbusters—and left me eager to see more of their adventures.

Listing image by Columbia Pictures