- Directed by Paul Feig
- Written by Katie Dippold, Paul Feig, Ivan Reitman
- Stars Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones
- Run Time: 2 Hours, 13 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3ugHP-yZXw
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is a complete reboot of the original with four female Ghostbusters, a male secretary, and a different story of peril to the city of New York. We went in with an open mind, willing to give it a fair chance to entertain us. While it does have some bright spots and chuckles here and there, it’s not a patch on the original.
Synopsis
We open on a tour guide talking about an old, historic house. He makes it sound like old man Aldridge might not have been such a nice guy. His daughter, Gertrude, may have been even worse; they locked her in the basement for years. “No one has opened this door since then,” he says. Later, after closing, he sees the doorknob turning and someone screams. As the ghosts get him, credits roll.
Erin talks to her boyfriend; she’s a particle physicist. No one comes to her lecture except Ed Mulgrave. He’s the historian for the Aldridge Mansion, and he’s read her book. The Dean, Harold Filmore, is snooty and doesn’t care for Erin; he walks past a bust of Egon Spengler on the way out.
Erin goes to see Abby, who has published Erin’s book without permission. They wrote the book together many years ago, but now it’s gonna look bad on Erin’s tenure application. Jillian Holzmann is an engineer who works with Abby. They demonstrate a fart joke. Erin tells them about the Aldridge Mansion.
The three women go to the Aldridge House, but the tour guide, Garrett, lets them in but also adds, “You’re going to die in there.” They soon see Gertrude’s ghost, who vomits gallons of ectoplasm all over Erin. It all winds up on YouTube, which does not please Dead Filmore, who fires her.
There are numerous emails from people who report seeing ghosts. There’s a TV show out there called “Ghost Jumpers,” but they’re a bunch of fakers. Abby wants to do it for real. Soon, Abby and Jillian are fired too, so what do they have to lose?
Patty Tolan, who works in the subway, follows Rowan, a weird guy, into the tunnels and sees a ghost. Somehow, Rowan made that ghost appear. We see that he has a whole bunch of ghosts trapped inside mirrors where he works.
The women go to the firehouse from the original Ghostbusters movie, but the rent is $21,000 a month, so they end up moving into a former Chinese restaurant instead. Chris Hemsworth shows up, and he wants to be their receptionist, Kevin. He’s got a really confusing conversational style, and he’s just stupid, but he looks so good they hire him.
Patty comes to see them about the ghost she saw. They all go down into the subway and they see the ghost too. They shoot it with a proton gun, and it just annoys him. They post the video online, and no one believes it’s real. Patty wants to “join the club,” and she seals the deal by bringing them a Hearse.
Jillian fixes the proton gun, and it might work now. Actually, it might be a little overpowered now. They watch an interview show with Dr. Heiss, a paranormal expert, who says the girls’ videos on YouTube are all fake.
Rowan goes to a rock concert, and we see that he’s got a device with him.
Jillian has had the Hearse redecorated to look like a proper Ghostbusters car. They have coveralls, proton packs, and look just like the um, “Real Ghostbusters.” They go into the concert hall and find a ghost-attracting device. They are soon chased by a possessed mannequin. They shoot the mannequin, which explodes into a big winged flying ghost, which goes out onto stage in front of the crowd, which thinks it’s part of the show. They work together and actually manage to capture the ghost.
Dr. Heiss comes to visit the Ghostbusters. “Why are you pretending to catch ghosts?” They release the ghost they caught to prove it to the old man, and it throws him out the windows. “He just wasn’t Ghostbusters material,” someone says.
The mayor calls in the Ghostbusters for a little talk. They tell him that someone is causing all the ghost activity on purpose, and he tells them to stop doing their thing as the government can handle it. The government is going to publicly say the Ghostbusters are fake.
Unwilling to stop, Jillian comes up with a whole bunch of new weapons and toys, all of which make a mess. They figure out that the bad guy is using the devices and ghosts to charge up some ley lines, which will break down the walls between realities. The center of all the activity is the Mercado Hotel, which is where Rowan works, and Patty recognizes his picture on the website.
They track down Rowan at the hotel and find his workshop, which is really something. He does a whole monologue, and then Abby gives him a speech about how great the world is. He fries himself in the equipment, shorting it out, and the ghosts stay put. The Ghostbusters call on the government to clean it all up, and they blame the Ghostbusters for this “publicity stunt.”
Rowan’s ghost possesses Abby, who then starts smashing the Ghostbusters’ equipment. Patty slaps the ghost right out of Abby. The ghost then possesses Kevin, who rides away.
Erin goes to tell the mayor to evacuate the city, but he won’t do that. Possessed Kevin goes back to Rowan’s place and continues the “dead” man’s work. He releases all the ghosts, including Slimer, who steals the Ghostbusters’ car.
In the meantime, the Ghostbusters are menaced by haunted parade balloons, including a giant marshmallow man.
Kevin/Rowan shows up at the Mercado and makes all the police, agents, and crowd do a dance. There’s an all out ghost battle with lots of action, but they finally go inside to face off with Kevin.
Rowan depossess Kevin, but they can’t shoot the ghostly Rowan. He wants to know what form he can take and appears as the cartoon ghost from their logo, only huge and scary; skyscraper-sized huge and scary.
Abby and Jillian say the only way to stop the giant monster is to cross the streams on the proton guns when they shoot the portal. It doesn’t work, so they decide to turn the Ghostbuster car into a giant ghost trap. It works, but the huge ghost grabs Abby as he gets sucked into the portal.
Erin hooks a cable onto herself and jumps in after Abby. They both come back out, but now they have white hair. Kevin insists he helped avert the crisis. The mayor once again denies everything.
The city offers to give them the firehouse they couldn’t afford before along with funding. Patty’s Uncle Bill comes by, looking for the Hearse, which they lost in the portal.
Commentary
We watched the extended cut, which includes fifteen extra minutes of stuff not shown in theaters.
Everyone tore this apart when it came out, and we didn’t see it then. In the meantime, we’ve seen lots of opinions saying it was unfairly maligned and underrated.
No, it’s just not funny. There are a few laughs, but many, many more just fall flat. Melissa McCarthy is just not funny.
The special effects are really well done, far better than the originals. It’s a lot more action-oriented than the originals, which were mostly jokey-comedy.
The action and the special effects are quite good. The jokes and humor are very weak.