Go see it. Fuck the haters.
Spoiler potential below the cut.
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I'll admit, coming out of the theater, I had to work at finding something to complain about at this movie. Really work. Which is a good indication that a summer blockbuster has entertained the shit out of you.
The main cast worked. They were funny, they were tight, they were flawed, they were entertaining. Admittedly, that may be my heist-film junkie coming to the fore (I love seeing teams of hyper-talented and deeply fucked up people turned loose). The nods, easter eggs, and cameos were all fun without being distracting.
The story itself was weak in places, but usually masked by the characters being so much fun you don't care. Kevin irked me on occasion by going ~too~ over the top. Hemsworth had his work cut out for him, but there's fine lines between, "dumber than a jar of mayonaise," "legitimately brain damaged," "bugnuts insane," and "seriously, how do you speak English and clothe yourself?" and a couple times I'm not sure which way he was going (until act 3, when he suddenly had more to do).
The villains, such as they were, were pretty weaksauce. I found more entertaining lines from the community college dean chasing the girls out with a baseball bat than I found from Andy Garcia, his aide, and the homeland security bubbas combined. The supernatural villain, meanwhile, was more plot device than character. That's ok, though, in that the real journey was seeing the busters be recognized and legitimized, both as individuals and as a team.
It also changed with the times in a very legit way. For all that Ghostbusters is an action-comedy, it's also a horror movie that's based in fear. The original Ghostbusters feared that government meddling with what they were too lame to understand would cause all hell to break loose (a legit fear from people doing SNL with Belushi, dodging the NBC censors at every turn). Nowadays, what people fear is an unnoticed loser who wants to watch the world burn gaining the power to destroy all the lives he pleases. And Ghostbusters delivers us exactly that.
Now that my film school dropout analysis has been thoroughly purged, I'm gonna get personal. I'm an actor. I work in hollywood. I know all about California beauty standards and the economics behind it all and just about every argument you could make, I've participated in.
Because of this movie, for the first time ever, I got to sit in a darkened theater and watch my wife see someone who looked like her being a badass main character. Character even shared her first name. There she was: brunette, zaftig, thirties, glasses-wearing, strapping on a proton pack and fucking up the underworld. Last time she saw anything remotely close to that was when Molly Weasley opened up the whoop-ass jar, and that was after 7 1/2 movies of mommying the rest of the cast to hell and back.
I'm no romantic lead myself, and I came to terms with that long ago. But I also know that for all I'm scrabbling in the corners to see myself as the heavy sidekick to someone or another, the ladies get shafted when it comes to seeing themselves far more than I ever do.
I wouldn't be pointing this out if the movie had sucked. I'm firmly in the camp of "compose your cast how you will, but you damn well better entertain me." And this movie did both.
Holy shit, seeing her face light up like that was awesome.
Spoiler potential below the cut.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
I'll admit, coming out of the theater, I had to work at finding something to complain about at this movie. Really work. Which is a good indication that a summer blockbuster has entertained the shit out of you.
The main cast worked. They were funny, they were tight, they were flawed, they were entertaining. Admittedly, that may be my heist-film junkie coming to the fore (I love seeing teams of hyper-talented and deeply fucked up people turned loose). The nods, easter eggs, and cameos were all fun without being distracting.
The story itself was weak in places, but usually masked by the characters being so much fun you don't care. Kevin irked me on occasion by going ~too~ over the top. Hemsworth had his work cut out for him, but there's fine lines between, "dumber than a jar of mayonaise," "legitimately brain damaged," "bugnuts insane," and "seriously, how do you speak English and clothe yourself?" and a couple times I'm not sure which way he was going (until act 3, when he suddenly had more to do).
The villains, such as they were, were pretty weaksauce. I found more entertaining lines from the community college dean chasing the girls out with a baseball bat than I found from Andy Garcia, his aide, and the homeland security bubbas combined. The supernatural villain, meanwhile, was more plot device than character. That's ok, though, in that the real journey was seeing the busters be recognized and legitimized, both as individuals and as a team.
It also changed with the times in a very legit way. For all that Ghostbusters is an action-comedy, it's also a horror movie that's based in fear. The original Ghostbusters feared that government meddling with what they were too lame to understand would cause all hell to break loose (a legit fear from people doing SNL with Belushi, dodging the NBC censors at every turn). Nowadays, what people fear is an unnoticed loser who wants to watch the world burn gaining the power to destroy all the lives he pleases. And Ghostbusters delivers us exactly that.
Now that my film school dropout analysis has been thoroughly purged, I'm gonna get personal. I'm an actor. I work in hollywood. I know all about California beauty standards and the economics behind it all and just about every argument you could make, I've participated in.
Because of this movie, for the first time ever, I got to sit in a darkened theater and watch my wife see someone who looked like her being a badass main character. Character even shared her first name. There she was: brunette, zaftig, thirties, glasses-wearing, strapping on a proton pack and fucking up the underworld. Last time she saw anything remotely close to that was when Molly Weasley opened up the whoop-ass jar, and that was after 7 1/2 movies of mommying the rest of the cast to hell and back.
I'm no romantic lead myself, and I came to terms with that long ago. But I also know that for all I'm scrabbling in the corners to see myself as the heavy sidekick to someone or another, the ladies get shafted when it comes to seeing themselves far more than I ever do.
I wouldn't be pointing this out if the movie had sucked. I'm firmly in the camp of "compose your cast how you will, but you damn well better entertain me." And this movie did both.
Holy shit, seeing her face light up like that was awesome.
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