4/10
It’s far from amazing and if you’re one of those skeptics who are convinced it won’t match the original (which I’m certain almost everyone is) you’re probably right. But who cares? There are enough aspects to like that holds Ghostbusters 3 as an enjoyable flick to see.
Set in a different timeline compared to the original films, we are introduced to two ghost experts in Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) and Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy), whose past relationships have been rocky in their differences to prove their existence. Thankfully they don’t have to wait long for such a proof to be made as strange occurrences begin to gain momentum in Manhattan, forcing them to team up with a nuclear engineer (Kate McKinnon) and a subway worker (Leslie Jones), to save their city. Paul Feig (Spy, Bridesmaids) returns to collaborate with McCarthy and Wiig, in addition to their new cast mates from Saturday Night Live, and he thankfully does a better job than expected.
Going into this film, I was already pre-dispositioned from seeing the trailer and hearing everyone talk about how bad it’s going to be. Even I was under the impression that like other reboots/sequels, the main goal is simply to re-hash out a large cash cow that worked once and should be able to work again. Whilst I still feel like that was still the goal of this film, I was happily surprised that it was enjoyable to watch and more so great to look at. If there’s one thing that was done better than the originals, holy crap does it ever go to the special FX. It’s no wonder the budget was over 100 million (even though I’m sure each A-list celebrity got a large chunk of that as per usual) because every ghost that came on screen was beautifully made – in a weird scary way. Visual effects teams don’t get recognized enough so that’s my shout out towards their tireless efforts.
But what about the plot I hear you say, is it as funny as the originals? Yes and no. There are quite a few questionable choices with the jokes as I found they were often falling flat. For example, Chris Hemsworth’s character of the receptionist Kevin is entirely clueless about everything around him and his own stupidity was often relied on for humor. Despite his chiseled body and rugged handsomeness, he was more annoying than funny. I couldn’t stand how dumb they had to make him and I’m not sure if that was done in order to show how contradictory to most films, males can also be the dumb bimbo types. I kid you not, there was a scene in which he describes calling his dog “My Cat” which causes confusion when the team told him he wasn’t allowed to bring cats into the workplace. *groan*
Nevertheless, the rest of the story is thankfully funnier than those scenes, in particular with McKinnon and Jones, whose characters were hilarious to watch from their own quirkiness and demonstrates why they are on SNL. Dare I say they even outshone their larger A-list counterparts. But the best laugh I got was surprisingly from the antagonist and his own awkward blend of humor that he brings going into a metal concert (so look out for that). Ghostbusters knows the negative reaction expected from being a reboot of a popular franchise and even uses that within its central theme. Yes, it still suffers from a predictable plot and shows nothing we haven’t seen before but at least it encompasses enough new aspects and homages to make it a joy to watch. Check it out.