#ghostbusters review

[g3othermal3scapism]

My first movie reviewing type post because i have so many opinions on movies and i can ignore speaking on them no longer.

GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE

review under the cut

Okay, so this might not be the neatest post in the world. Whatever im yapping here. Figure it out yourself.

Let me start off by saying Ghostbusters is one of my favorite franchises in the whole world, if not my favorite. I love all of the movies, yes even the third one everyone hates, which I have a million other points to make on, but that’s another post. I personally adored Afterlife, I thought it was a great continuation that didn’t rely too heavily on nostalgia but was very much a respectful sort of love-letter to the originals, as well as a good beginning to a new era. Other than it lacking in the comedy department a little, (especially for a comedy movie fanchise) I thought it did most everything right, or at least well. I was in love with Pheobe and Podcast as well as Gary, and the story with Egon was a really lovely homage to the old ghostbusters and of course, the late great Harold Ramis. I was beyond excited for Frozen Empire. So don’t think this is coming from a place of bias, because I really hate to say it but I didn’t like Frozen Empire much at all. I’m going to try to break down my reasoning as organized as possible.

- It was not funny. I touched on this earlier, but one of the biggest issue with this new era is that they are severely lacking in the comedy department. Ghostbusters has always been a comedy movie, more than a horror and much more than a drama. These movies are trying too hard to be a serious action movie, and Frozen Empire was not really funny at all. It had that whole intro with the firefighters in 1904 that had not one comedic moment, and the rest of the offhanded jokes they tried to make felt forced and more akin to the writing of an old disney channel sitcom. This is especially troubling because they hired amazing comedians like Patton Oswald, Kumail Nanjiani, and James Acaster, as well as the old amazing Paul Rudd, Bill Murray, and honestly all of the og ghostbusters, yet all of them barely had a funny line through the whole thing. Really baffling and the attempts at seriousness and angst really did a disservice to the enjoyability of the movie IMO.

- It was insanely rushed and there was too much going on. This is probably the main, over-arcing problem that really ruined the movie. There’s so much build up to a main conflict that lasts five minutes and solved immediately. I was baffled, convinced it was a joke and there was still half a movie we had yet to see. They tried to hard to make so many (already not well writtwn) plots fit without having a good way to conclude them. This, as well as the story being far too overbloated with characters. They tried so hard to keep the original Ghostbusters and make like 47 main characters work, that our real main characters were shoved to the side. Pheobe was barely in it, and when she was, we never really got to see her being Pheobe. Callie should’ve been a much smaller character, and while in my heart Pheobe, Podcast, Lucky, and Trevor should have been the new Ghostbusters, I think this movie should have focused more on Pheobe, Gary, and Ray. I have a vague plot in my head but that’s not the point. The movie was just trying to do too much and managed to do absolutely nothing.

- Callie. This might be a hot take, but I don’t care about Callie at all. She should not have been a Ghostbuster in this movie. It doesn’t make any sense. In Afterlife, Callie showed no signs of being interested in ghostbusting or that world at all, she just loved her dad. She’s not a scientist whatsoever. Pheobe was right, she absolutely should have just been the receptionist. On top of it not making sense, Callie just isn’t interesting enough to be a main Ghostbuster. She’s already not a scientist, but she offers no special skills or anything unique to herself, she doesn’t have an interesting personality and her arc is so boring. She was not needed in this movie. Again, Trevor, Pheobe, Lucky, and Podcast should be the main Ghostbusters. I don’t give a fuck about this family business thing and it was a bad choice IMO. In all honesty Trevor doesn’t need to be super major either.

- Jumping off of that…. Trevor. Oh my god. They murdered him in this movie. Trevor was never my favorite, but I liked his character a lot in Afterlife. I thought he could have been more interesting, but compared to Empire Trevor, in Afterlife he’s like Tarantino-level entertaining. Trevor sucked in this movie. The words “I’m 18 now” should have never left his mouth. It’s such a tired, overdone bit, and they didn’t put any spin on it at all. And it was literally. His entire personality. It was so obnoxious. Give him something, especially since Finn Wolfhard is a funny actor. The idea of him having a running gag with Slimer wasn’t bad, and payoff was one of the funniest moments in the whole movie. (A three second scene of Finn Wolfhard seeing Slimer and going “Hey! I know him!” being the funniest bit in a Ghostbusters movie. Yikes.) Jesus fuck was he annoying in this movie, and him and Pheobe barely had any scenes together.

- Okay. Melody. Big fucking yikes. Pheobe being fruity? We been knew but I adored it. Exploring the ideas of inter-dimensional plane romance and relationships? Super interesting and a fun risk to take. Execution? Oh. my god. I loved Melody when we first met her at the park, I was super excited, but she just became.. nothing. We barely learned anything about her past or her life or her at all, and they totally missed the chance to make her from an old era, make her wear funny clothes and talk funny, and be an interesting character. She was just kind of this mysterious dead girl. Not learning about her past at all in turn made it hard to care about her story, if we don’t know her family or her life, why should we care that she wants to get back to them? Why is it justified that she would betray Pheobe to get to heaven or whatever? It doesn’t make sense. We see her at the diner, and the diner is called Melody and it’s never brought up again? If she were like a ‘50s themed ghost this would have been a fun little piece, but in the movie it doesn’t make sense, because we already know her place of death was her house that she burnt down. What does the diner have to do with anything? And the scene where she just stands in the road and has the goofiest corniest conversation with idk the voices in her head or whatever. God, pack it the fuck up. Then at the end, it’s so obvious she’s going to come back to save them, so the scene really holds no impact, even though it doesn’t make any sense for her to come back. She made her choice, she betrayed Pheobe to see her family (for whatever fucking reason), and she went through the barrier. We never see that the barrier didn’t work, or that something changed and made her change her decision. If her family is so fucking important, why on earth would she just go back to save people she hardly, or didn’t know? It doesn’t make any sense. Plus, if they wanted to give Pheobe a ghost girl romance (which I’m a fan of) they should have given her and Melody any semblance of chemistry. The actors didn’t have any chemistry and their dialogue was just sort of lame. Seeing Pheobe discover crushes and see how she would behave under those circumstances could have been very interesting, but it was just overall boring. Melody did not matter and nothing she ever did made sense. She wasn’t a character, she was a plot device to move the story along.

- This brings me to my next point.. none of the writing really made all that much sense? I mean they put all this work into the lore of the monster, even though really Ghostbusters shouldn’t be about lore, it should be about cool ghost designs and funny likeable characters, and then none of the lore mattered. I mean I barely remember anything about the big villain because it was all intensely boring and I just did not gaf at all. On top of this, the way the characters behave.. makes no sense. Pheobe’s family was so insensitive to her after she had to stop doing the thing she loved, despite it quite literally being her thing. In my opinion, if Pheobe wasn’t a ghostbuster, the whole thing would shut down. Trevor and Callie would be clueless, even with a little help with Gary, it just wouldn’t work. On top of this, when Pheobe destroyed the lion, and all the ghostbusters were mad at her??? What on earth was that about. The lion was quite literally going to kill Ray, and they’re ghostbusters. It is quite literally in the job description that you’re gonna destroy some shit and cause some problems. She had to, and Winston was all up her ass about it? It just didn’t make sense. He would’ve been on her side completely, and really all of the ghotsbusters involved shouldve been fighting for Pheobe. They’re supposed to be a team?? And I mean after everyone spend the movie getting mad at Pheobe literally anytime she breathed, the only time she actually messed up, almost killing herself and causing the end of the world for a cute girl, everyone’s all “Oh we’re just glad you’re okay!! everybody makes mistakes!!!” It’s so clownish actually. There are a million other things that just don’t make sense, but I’d have to rewatch it to make any real coherent analysis of them.

- The villain was so fucking goofy?? It was just this big cartoonish stereotype villain that wasn’t ironic at all. It was so unserious and not scary at all. That design sucked shit and there was nothing interesting about him. What’s the point of Ghostbusters if the big villain doesn’t talk and doesn’t have any funny scenes? Plus, like, oh wow big evil world ending dead god. I’ve never seen anything like this before. My mind is blown, Ghostbusters, you’ve done it again. (sarcasm 😊)

- Podcast and Pheobe were barely in the movie. They carried the last movie and they’re my favorite, so this is slightly biased, but them not being in it at all was insane. Especially, since, you know, pheobe is the main character. Even on the poster, it’s way too filled with characters, and Pheobe is no where near the focal point of the poster. It’s fucking Paul Rudd for some reason. Besides this, Podcast was no where near as funny as he should’ve been. Both Pheobe and Podcast lost that young awkward charm that made them so loveable, and you cannot convince me Podcast stopped being so dorky so easily. I also believe he would be super interesting in working in Ray’s shop, but I don’t believe he would let everyone be ghostbusting without him?? Pheobe ghostbusting without podcast? Absolutely not on his watch. Their characters were a little butchered.

- Ah. The ending. This fuckass ending. You saw it from a million miles away and so did I, and so did everyone fucking else. It was the most expected ending I’ve ever seen. No twists, nothing goes wrong, and when it does, it does not matter. None of it matters. Oh they all get suited up and team up? Doesn’t matter. you’re all frozen and will do nothing for the ending. Oh no, they all got frozen and can’t stop the bad guy? Doesn’t matter. Unrelated side character comes out of nowhere and saves the day in five seconds with no problem. No one lift a finger. Not even to mention how ridiculous the ice spikes were. They did all this set up with Kumail Nanjiani, jist for the payoff to be that. None of the conflicts they ran into in the movie had really any impact on the story later. They were just things that happened.

Overall, I thought the movie was a mess that was trying too hard at everything and succeeding very little. Now I’ll talk about some things I did like! Keeping the old ghostbusters, especially Ray, I thought was a good choice. The idea of Winston being the rich one who’s really running ghostbusters behind the scenes is perfect, especially considering Ernie Husdson really being the one to keep Ghostbusters alive, and having ghostbusters tech where he works with ghosts and makes containment units and new traps and what not was great. Pheobe and Gary trying go navigate their new relationship was an interesting and heartwarming idea, even if I thought it wasn’t executed amazingly. Pheobe tinkering with her proton pack and coating it with copper to blast the monster was a really fun, great idea. I love when they do little things like that, putting little spins on things, and I wish we could’ve seen more of that. Venkman had some of the best scenes in the movie. Him throwing the pens at Kumail Nanjiana was a very fun scene, and did keep the spirit of Peter Venkman very much. More than that, the scene where he shows up at the firehouse and immediately goes to wear he has a hidden thing of Whisky was gold. A perfect Venkman scene, a perfect “i lived here for years” moment, and very funny.

This is my analysis of ghostbusters frozen empire 😊😊🙏💖 sorry ghostbusters fandom i am one of you i love you please dont cancel me or whatever

[jimforce]

[thecynicalcinephile]

So, About Ghostbusters: Afterlife,

(Disclaimer: I am judging the film on its own merits, independent of any and all controversies surrounding the cast and crew. Rest assured I am aware of such controversies and I do have my own opinions regarding them, but I am here to critique the content on the screen not the people who created it. Now, on to the review!)

This is a fun film to go see in theaters and then never see again. There are a few exciting moments, but as a whole the film simply doesn't hold up.

First of all, the pacing is atrocious. One minute our characters are in a high-stakes chase and the next literally nothing plot relevant is happening. There's no cohesive rising tension at all. Hell, this is a two hour four minute movie and the plot doesn't even really start until the last 15 minutes. Beyond that, no one even fires a proton pack until we're already an hour in. That first hour is spent on nothing but slow, drawn-out character establishment that could've easily been condensed down to no more than twenty minutes.

What little semblance of a plot this movie possesses is essentially nothing more than a lazy remake of the first film. In some scenes it's so blatant that it almost feels like you're watching a cheap YouTube parody. That would be fine if the movie had dedicated itself solely to introducing the franchise to a new audience, but instead it wildly alternates between explaining everything for the first time and providing fanservice for long-time fans in such a way that for the most part it fails at adequately satisfying either demographic. I honestly can't tell whether this story is supposed to be a passing-of-the-torch or a getting-the-band-back-together.

As a more surface-level observation, the decision to go with Gozer as the big villain feels very uninspired. Like, been there, done that. They had all the deities and demons from any pantheon they wanted at their disposal, plus a whole ton of interesting concepts thought up for the old Ghostbusters cartoon series, and they just went with Gozer again. They could've done anything they wanted and they chose to do the one thing we'd already seen plenty of. I might've even preferred it if they'd brought back Vigo the Carpathian instead, at least there are still different things they could do with that character. Or better yet, they'd already decided bring in Ivo Shandor anyways, they could've just made him a big powerful villain. Don't show me the same one-trick monster I saw forty years ago, show me something new and unknown.

And of course there's the effects, which while sometimes good at other times make the whole thing feel more like a superbowl commercial than a feature film.

Ultimately, even if you're a diehard Ghostbusters fan, you should skip this movie. There just isn't anything here to see.

[jackofallnerdsshow]

Ghostbusters Review (1984) - Cineblokes Classic

Benjamin and Kaelan review the original Ghostbusters from 1984, directed by Ivan Reitman, and starring Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, ...

Benjamin and Kaelan review the original Ghostbusters from 1984, directed by Ivan Reitman, and starring Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, and Sigourney Weaver.  This review contains spoilers.  In this first of their new classic reviews, Benjamin and Kaelan ask the important questions, like: "why do Dana and Louis have to shag to summon Gozer?"

[frozenartscapes]

I finally watched Ghostbusters!

...The new one, not the original. I’ve seen that one a while ago. The verdict: it was good! But... I still wish there was more to it. To avoid this being too long, I’ll leave the rest of my review under the cut.

Now, I’ll admit I didn’t watch this in the most optimal of viewing methods: I watched it on the plane back from France. I had seven hours to kill, and it was probably the only movie there I was kinda interested in seeing. So instead of watching it on a big screen, or even my laptop, I watched it on a dirty touchscreen monitor embedded in the back of the seat in front of me (which was also angled slightly because I yet again was stuck on a seven hour flight with someone who decided to put his head in my lap for the duration of the flight). Normally, when I watch movies like this, it tends to not work in the movie’s favour, because watching something with less-than-ideal resolution and/or sound quality really makes it easy to see past the special effects that take up a good portion of a movie’s budget and focus more on dialogue and story. This is how I was never amazed by James Cameron’s Avatar, because I watched it on one of those little ancient TVs you sometimes see in coach buses. Seeing a movie that was marketed specifically for watching on the largest screens possible on a 1′x1′ monitor with the resolution range of a toaster definitely took away all the magic of the CGI effects and revealed it for what it truly was: Pocahontas with space aliens.

But I’m getting sidetracked! Back to Ghostbusters.

It was good. I will say it was entertaining, a few of the jokes were funny, all four of the lead actresses were on point, and while some of the effects were kinda cheesy I do appreciate the call backs to the original. That being said, I definitely think there are areas that could be improved upon.

It was painfully obvious that this movie was written for guys, but in a move to appeal to today’s modern crowd they decided to cast four women for the characters instead of men. And I know that sounds like a criticism that a lot of angry dudes have used to slam the movie, allow me to defend myself here. The main characters weren’t women who happened to be ghostbusters/scientists. They were Women Ghostbusters. Nearly every joke was about the fact that they were ladies. A lot of the dialogue and even some of the plot devices centred around the fact that they were women. There was a goddamn “you shoot like a girl” joke in there. And I get it, I want representation as much as the next woman, but... The story was written for guys. And guys won’t laugh unless there are jokes at a woman’s expense.

I would have loved to see a little more backstory. For every character, not just Erin and Patty. I really did love all of them, and they all were each really unique and interesting. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t have made the ghostbusters women, but the fact that they were woman shouldn’t have driven the dialogue as much as it did. The entire story seemed to move really quickly and at times kinda stumble awkwardly through some things instead of taking the time to step back and add more depth to the characters. And I’m not just talking about the women, but all the characters. I was left sitting there wondering constantly “Who is this? Why are they even doing that? Now what’s going on? Did I miss a scene?”.

Overall, it was ok, but not something I’m going to really want to watch again. The plot was so full of holes that you don’t even need to be a ghost to pass through it, the characters - though interesting - needed to be fleshed out a little more than just being stereotypes, and I’m left with this annoying feeling that it could have been better but it wasn’t. I’ll admit, I’m not a die-hard Ghostbuster fan to begin with, but I was intrigued by this new remake. It was nice, as a woman myself, to see the main characters were women. It’s rare that a main character of a story is a woman, let alone nearly all the main characters. But for this, as I said above, it really felt like the movie exists because they were women and not that they just happened to be women. And as a result it tries too hard to drive that point home instead of actually coming up with a decent plot or more rounded characters.

(I will say, though, that the little toast Holtz gave at the end of the movie was an adorable little bit of development, and it is one of those things that I wish happened a little more throughout the movie instead of solely at the end.)

So, it was good. But could have been better.

[aucafedesloisirs]

Date de sortie: 10 août 2016De: Paul FeigAvec: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon…Genres: Action, Comédie, FantastiqueDurée: 1h 57min Synopsis: S.O.S. FANTÔMES est de retour, revisité et dynamisé avec un casting féminin et de tout nouveaux personnages plus hilarants les uns que les autres. Trente ans après le raz-de-marée planétaire du premier film, le réalisateur Paul Feig nous offre…

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[upsofloatingmanybellsdown]

Okay, so I just got back from seeing the new Ghostbusters for the second time.

Where to begin.

Everybody please go see this movie!

I had so much fun. And I probably only went to this film in the first place because of Tumblr; I haven’t seen the original (if this be blasphemy, then I embrace it) and I go to maybe two or three movies a year, if that, but I was lured in by the promise of four female leads and no romance plots.

Because, well, they don’t make movies like that. And I had no idea how badly I needed one, until I went to see Ghostbusters.

I’m going to try not to talk about the plot too much because my best friend follows my Tumblr and she hasn’t seen the film yet. And it’s not without its flaws (some things that may be plot holes, a shot where I’m pretty sure they flipped the film over, and I’m maybe a little uncomfortable with the way people other than the Ghostbusters treated the villain). But… we have epic ghost-fighting.

We have a would-be skeptic learning to embrace the title of “ghost girl”—and maybe learning to live without recognition for oddball stuff when she knows for herself it’s true.

We have a history buff who probably knows every paranormal thing that’s happened in NYC just incidentally, is actually pretty scared of ghosts but fights them anyway (and doesn’t seem to be scared by too much else), and will knock herself out to rescue her friends—from just about anything. And she’s pretty good with practical details like “outfits that won’t be hurt by ghost slime,” too.

We have the dedicated paranormal researcher, devoting her life to this stuff from the beginning, who is probably the only person in the entire film to try and talk to the villain on a human level. (It doesn’t work, and the proton guns come out once the guy actually unleashes a swarm of ghosts, but I think it’s good that she tries.)

We have a brilliant/nerdy/snarky/weird engineer who dances to the soundtrack, sets things on fire, builds ghost equipment that seems like it just explodes but actually it does its job really well, makes her coworkers laugh and has one of the sweetest end-of-movie speeches you’ve ever heard in your life. (And she’s maybe like thirty! She’s not much older than me!)

And no romances; no catfighting; and there are actual scenes where they’re sitting around a table eating pizza (or maybe it was Chinese food) talking about ghosts, and spinning off into jargon only a ghostbuster could possibly understand, and then coming back to make the next shocking discovery, and then they go out and fight ghosts. And I’m glad this movie wasn’t out 15 years ago, because I would have been eleven and I had no ability to handle CGI malevolent ghosts back then, but… they fight ghosts! They trap ghosts! Nobody has to be damsel in distress! They have epic proton guns!

The world does not normally make movies where women get to have epic proton guns! Or where they get to laugh and have dance parties to celebrate catching a ghost and eat Chinese food and complain about the number of wontons in the soup!

Oh, and they get a happy ending! All four of them!

But… if everybody goes to see it… if we could make it a big enough hit… maybe more films like that will get made.

I’m not sure the odds are too great… but it’s worth a try, surely, cuz more movies like this would be awesome.

And I really did have a blast. It’s an incredibly fun movie.

Please go see the new Ghostbusters.

[lazysupernova]

I watched the new Ghostbusters movie. And it’s not what I expected at all.

Spoilers ahead!

Now, a few things to say before I start my review. I already had some expectations about the movie, seeing as people had been discussing it even before a single actor had been cast or even a script could be written. I honestly didn’t think that I would enjoy it - while the leading ladies are all amazing actresses, most of Melissa McCarthy’s movies had a lot of, well ... toilet humor. And I don’t like that kind of humor - I find it childish, cheap, and gross. So I thought that this movie would have loads of that too, and it would spoil my mood. So, can you imagine my surprise when the movie had none of that? Sure, there was one fart (?) joke, but it happened early on and so by the end of the movie I had mostly forgotten about it.

To put it short, the movie was perfect. Yes, there were some minor plot holes, but every movie has that, so I’m not really going to hold that against this movie when I’ve closed my eyes when other movies have done the same thing too.

What I liked most about this movie is how subtle some things were done. Instead of making some fourth-wall breaking remarks which honestly would have cheapened the movie, all of the movie’s points about the gender inequality in Hollywood was shown with Chris Hemsworth’s character. And I really gotta give props to him for agreeing to do this role, because I can imagine that some other men would have said no.

I also liked that it wasn’t just a repeat of the original movie’s plot. The movie had its own original plot, with just enough witty nods to the original, which was refreshing and honestly, it was how remakes should be done.

The four leading ladies had amazing chemistry together. I could spend a whole day just talking about each one of them, so I’ll just say this - they were diverse, they were intriguing, they were real. And - no romantic subplot. More movies should do that.

I think I’ll end things here. I have loads more to say, but honestly, I’m not a review blog or anything, so I think I should keep it short. Anyway, I’d definitely recommend you to go and watch this movie, because I can guarantee - you will like it.