New 'Ghostbusters' Reboot is Disappointingly Mild

It would have been sweet justice if the new Ghostbusters were really terrific, because its very existence received such vehement criticism from devoted fans of the original film, taking to the Internet—even before the movie was released—to voice their outrage that director Paul Feig was casting four women to fill the shoes of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson. But I’d like to think that was a very small cadre of web trolls, because why does it matter that the main characters are all women? What matters more is that it’s funny. Unfortunately, the new Ghostbusters isn’t funny enough. This isn’t the fault of its stars, either. Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon have proven themselves to be very, very funny. The fault must be laid at the feet of our current studio structure, in which even comedies have to be big, eye-popping, exhausting entertainment machines. This system often squeezes the life out of viable projects.

The original Ghostbusters was actually a victim of this same kind of studio bloat: The problem has only gotten worse since 1984. (See Pauline Kael’s seminal essay “Why the Movies Are So Bad” in her book Taking It All In.) Even some of the most beloved movies of the 80s, including Ghostbusters `84, Batman `89, and the Indiana Jones trilogy, all acquire tunnel-vision in the last act, when they ratchet up the stakes the only way they know how: by going as big as possible. It’s the reason we feel a sense of closure when there’s an explosion in a movie. We’ve been trained well.

It’s depressing that a movie like Ghostbusters must adhere to such exhausting, banal conventions, but it’s the reality. And this reality becomes clear right at the beginning of Ghostbusters, when a glowy green ghost terrorizes a tour guide inside a haunted mansion. The terrified man tries to escape from the house, but winds up in the basement, where the floor begins to move as some kind of green oozy stuff bubbles up underneath it and threatens to engulf him. Soon, the powerful and apparently very pissed off ghost rushes through and then the scene ends.

This opening reveals a lot about the movie’s flaws. It’s not just the bigness of the production. The writers, Paul Feig and Katie Dippold, somehow forget that they’re making a comedy. They’re hyper-focused on the story, to the point that it often plays like a straight horror flick, or better yet, a straight Marvel Comics installment. Especially at the end, Ghostbusters looks no different from a superhero movie in which an all-powerful villain destroys New York City, smashing through whole buildings without actually harming any citizens. At times, there is nothing funny happening on screen, which is usually when the film employs the one-liners of Ghostbuster #4, Patty, played by Leslie Jones, who dishes out quips like she’s dealing cards at a casino.

The girls have their moments. I’m a devoted fan of Kristen Wiig, who can do comedy and drama with equal finesse, and who has a knack for whimsical flakiness, a quality — or perhaps an affectation — she exhibits in Bridesmaids when she’s in an uncomfortable or threatening situation or when she’s trying to be funny. But Wiig is basically the straight-man in this film, save a few moments where she dishes out a sliver of her brand of fizzy insanity. In one scene, Wiig bursts into a fancy restaurant where the Mayor of New York is having lunch, trying to warn him about an impending ectoplasmic apocalypse. The secret service agents attempt to eject her from the room as she grips the table, pulling it with her out the door. Wiig is game when it comes to these acts of silly, delightful humor, and I kept wanting more moments like that for her.

And then there’s Melissa McCarthy, so often miscast as the punching bag of any comedy, who sort of fades into the background in this movie. One of McCarthy’s least acknowledged talents is her painfully sharp delivery, which she employs here to some effect. And, just as in Spy, McCarthy is funnier here when she’s competent and in on the joke. But both Wiig and McCarthy are overshadowed by their co-stars, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones, which isn’t always a good thing. I’ve relished McKinnon’s Hillary Clinton impersonations on Saturday Night Live, but she gives a surprisingly limited performance in Ghostbusters, ceaselessly mugging for the camera in every scene. McKinnon’s face is like a neon skyline: every attribute is screaming for your attention. The schtick is funny until it’s not, and until it feels like schtick and nothing more. McKinnon’s Jillian Holtzmann stands in for Egon, the nerdiest member of the original Ghostbusters, played by the late Harold Ramis. But Ramis had some genuinely human moments, like when he tells a woman, “I collect spores, molds, and fungus,” knowing she’ll be turned off by his hobby but nonetheless defiantly proud of his interests. Or later, when the ghostbusters are about to use their ghost-catching devices for the first time and realize they could be endangering their own lives, Egon says, “I feel personally responsible.” Beneath his nerdiness and his savant-like knowledge, there’s a beating heart. McKinnon’s character never grows beyond the conception of a one-note SNL sketch. Leslie Jones fares better, even though she’s ostensibly cast as the stereotypical sassy black character. She’s the most endearing one of the bunch, hired as the fourth Ghostbuster because she’s a New Yorker who knows the city inside out.

Fans of the original will enjoy the cameo appearances of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts (who’s so underrated), and Sigourney Weaver. But as much as I enjoyed seeing these wonderful performers make little appearances in the film, part of me longs for movies that aren’t so dependant on nostalgia. The new Ghostbusters tells its own story to be sure. It’s not a direct remake. But its existence is absolutely based on people’s nostalgia for the original, which may explain why so many fans were annoyed about Paul Feig’s casting choice. His casting is fine. The movie, though, needs work.

With Chris Hemsworth as Kevin, the Ghostbusters’ dumb-hot receptionist, Andy Garcia, Charles Dance, Michael Kenneth Williams, Matt Walsh, Ed Begley, Jr., Cecily Strong, and Michael McDonald.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

Click here to read my guest review of Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, featured this week on another Jacksonville-based pop culture blog, To the Escape Hatch.

There's lots to see in "Captain America: Civil War," but not much stands out.

In Captain America: Civil War, the Avengers are forced to sign a treaty with the United Nations that will prevent them from interfering with bad guys unless specifically conscripted by individual nations. This causes a rift between the Avengers, some of whom (including Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson) consider it a necessary evil, while others (among them Captain America, played by Chris Evans) see the treaty as a form of surrender that will tear the Avengers apart. The latter eventually happens, and we see multiple Avengers fighting each other in a mostly light-hearted sequence. It’s lighthearted because so little is at stake: we know that none of the Avengers is actually going to be killed. Usually in any narrative, low stakes are a reason not to care about what’s happening, but in this case, the low stakes are a relief.

I found myself enjoying this scene all the more because it wasn’t an excuse for rampant destruction of whole city blocks. Instead, the writers and directors punctuate this scene, which takes place at an airplane hangar, with a flurry of mini-conversations between all these characters (Captain America, Iron Man, Falcon, Hawkeye, Black Widow, etc) as they spar with each other. Ant-Man (played by Paul Rudd) cuts every moment down to size with a dumb joke. (He may be the least respected and most undervalued of all superheroes.) And the sequence showcases the amusing, cocksure arrogance of a young Spider-Man (Tom Holland).

Of course, the great heretofore unacknowledged joke of most superhero movies is that the heroes end up destroying the city in an attempt to save it. We see some all-powerful evil agent smashing cars and toppling buildings, and the heroes are forced to add to the destruction, though we assume it’s out of necessity. These movies gleefully stage enormous battle sequences that should kill thousands of human beings, but because the films are targeted at kids, we’re supposed to be okay with it. And, conveniently, nothing too horrible ever happens to a discernable human being. (Don Cheadle does get hurt pretty bad in this one, but he’s one of the heroes, not some innocent bystander.) It’s nice that Captain America: Civil War incorporates this joke/problem into its story.

The rest of the film vacillates between mindless, sped-up action sequences and little dramatic exchanges reminiscent of The Young and the Restless. The Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) is traumatized when she uses her powers and accidentally destroys a whole building. (This is the impetus for the disputed U.N. treaty.) Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) is still haunted by the deaths of his parents. Captain America has a little romance brewing with CIA agent Sharon Carter (Emily Van Camp, who has a real screen presence). There are others, but I’ve already forgotten them. These dramatic moments don’t ever really pop, perhaps because they’re cloaked in sameness. The film certainly has a rhythm, and directors Joe and Anthony Russo are smart enough to give the audience little breaks between all the fighting. But they seem to have only two approaches to a scene: make it fast or make it slow. Perhaps we wouldn’t need so many breaks from the action if it were meaningful and not mindless, if it were artful and clever and exciting and not merely overwhelming and predictable.

I tried hard to discern what was going on during those moments of fighting between multiple characters. The action is sped up so much that it’s impossible to sort out what amounts to a jumble of images. Is this supposed to be entertaining? Don’t people find it chaotic and therefore impossible to connect with or enjoy? I realize that these films appeal to viewers as mindless entertainment, but how is it entertaining when you can’t even tell what’s happening? Whenever filmmakers overly rely on shaky cameras and rapid editing, my assumption is that they’re covering up their ineptitude, hoping we’ll give them credit for putting something up there, whether it possesses visual logic or not, whether it’s well-choreographed or not.

Action—whether derived from a comic book or not—doesn’t have to be this way. See John Wick, and you’ll see how to make a mindless action movie with real visual elegance. Of course, John Wick is also R-rated, and it’s likely that the need to make a PG-13 rating prevents movies like Captain America from reaching the glorious heights of violence that John Wick enjoys. But sanitizing the violence in order to make it kid-appropriate is actually worse: it diminishes the shock factor. A movie like John Wick never ceases to shock me, to convey the reality that violence can wreak havoc in people and places and cause real physical pain. What we need are more real, sharp comic book movies and less of this vague, “cleaned-up” drek.

But at least there are lots of familiar faces that unexpectedly pop up. Jeremy Renner appears (as Hawkeye) in the last third of the movie. As irritating as it is to see a character (played by such a great actor as Jeremy Renner) introduced so late in the film, his presence filled me with gratitude. And Tom Holland makes a good impression as Peter Parker. (Even though Andrew Garfield was terrific in the role.) The scene where Tony Stark enlists Spider-Man’s help is the best one in the movie: it’s funny and revealing and has some shape to it. We see Peter Parker coming to grips with the nature and the implications of his power; we see Tony Stark at his most desperate, making a trip to Queens to ask for a high school kid’s help. (But aren’t we all tired of Robert Downey, Jr.’s shtick by now? He’s been playing the smart-ass smart guy for over a decade.)

Somehow, Scarlett Johansson gets lost in all this. She’s a terrific actress, and certainly skillful in her many fight scenes, but she—like so many others—gets relegated to the sidelines as the film introduces more and more characters. The end result: it’s forgettable but intermittently amusing. Anthony Mackie, who plays Falcon, is a pleasure to watch. Mackie has charm to spare, and he always seems to be having a good time whenever he’s on screen. With Don Cheadle, Paul Bettany, Chadwick Boseman (as the Black Panther), Sebastian Stan, Frank Grillo, William Hurt, Marissa Tomei, and Daniel Brühl.