Ghostbusters Review: It’s The Script Not The Cast That’s The Problem

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Let’s get this right out of the way, the new Ghostbusters film has some fine leads. From the four ghostbusters themselves: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones to the 2016 version of the receptionist, this time played by Chris Hemsworth – they are all solid ensemble players. McKinnon has a solid career ahead of her, and is probably herself most suited for a solo lead at the moment, but they all have their strengths. That said, their efforts are undercut by a singularly horrible script.

Times throughout the film the surviving actors from the first films put in appearances, but rather than being a source of joy or at least entertainment by the audience, everyone in our screening cringed at their forced lines. Seeing Bill Murray in a Ghostbusters film in any capacity should have been the best kind of fan service, but instead it’s a source of awkward silences in the theater. It’s simply not a good sign and it gets no better as the film plods through its 105-minute running time.

This time around the art borrows heavily from the original 1984 film: two paranormal researchers (Wiig and McCarthy) capture a video of a ghost but this time the video is shared online and goes viral. That’s the impetus for them to be punted out of their academic roles at the University. The hunt down a nuclear engineer (McKinnon) and a subway attendant (Jones) to help build a new business of ghostbusting. As the business grows they hire on the profoundly ditzy Hemsworth as their new receptionist. This is particularly one more way in which it expresses an ignorance of the original film: in the original the receptionist Janine (played then by Annie Potts) isn’t ditzy or stupid – she simply is a bit of a square that doesn’t really buy into all of the techno-talk and ghosts thing. She’s capable, keeping track of the calls, the budget, and being a useful team member. Hemsworth can’t even understand how to use his desk phone.

As the film goes on it only continues to build along the same kinds of ignorance of what made the original so good. They give the conflict with the EPA agent nothing more but a passing footnote. They drop a number of the original lines, or they try to be coy and pivot them slightly with a nod and a wink. But in the end, for all the comedic skill that exists in the cast, the script conspires to neuter any kind of genuine humor along the  way.

It might be a good time to skip the night at the theater and just watch the original again. It’ll be cheaper and far more fascinating.

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