STAR RATING: ***** Brilliant **** Very Good *** Okay ** Poor * Awful
The new Ghostbusters team, headed by partners Gary (Paul Rudd) and Callie (Carrie Coon), along with Callie's kids, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (McKenna Grace) tackle some supernatural forces terrorising New York City, causing a bit of damage in the process, and raising the ire of new mayor Walter Peck (William Atherton), with Phoebe drawing particular scorn. However, original Ghostbuster Ray Stantz (Dan Ackroyd) may hold the key to regaining everyone's affection for them, when a mysterious orb in his possession unleashes the spirit of Gorocca, an ancient God with the power to plunge the city into a deep freeze.
Following 2021's Ghostbusters: Afterlife, writer/director Gil Kenan brings the franchise back to the big screen, forty years after the iconic original film was released, and determined to keep the series rolling. With the current stars and the original actors meeting at a crossroads, it's a weird reflection of how far the series has come, and where it may be stuck. With all the original stars crammed in together with the new performers, it's an overstuffed egg resulting in too many characters to keep up with, and clearly still too clingy to its original source material.
As a big screen, visual spectacle, it's still an impressive, immersive experience, the kind of thing 3D was created for, and on this front could provide a fun day out for all the family. The special effects, then, make it a sort of fun ride. But of course, they can't compensate for a weak, flat plot, and unfunny, forced humour, that the original managed so effortlessly. While original stars Ackroyd and Ernie Hudson as Winston Zeddemore, who's now an entrepreneur, seem to embrace the whole thing as wildly as they can, strangely its original rivals Murray and Atherton who seem more reluctant, with Atherton's arsey, bureaucratic Peck now more awkwardly inserted into scenes, while Murray shows up for roughly half an hour towards the end. This uneven distribution of faith in the project between the stars is one of the many disconcerting things about the whole thing.
If you're in an especially undemanding mood, it does provide a decent, flashy fun ride, but there's very little beneath the surface beyond a commercial interest in keeping the franchise going, and letting the quality take a backslide. **
The new Ghostbusters team, headed by partners Gary (Paul Rudd) and Callie (Carrie Coon), along with Callie's kids, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (McKenna Grace) tackle some supernatural forces terrorising New York City, causing a bit of damage in the process, and raising the ire of new mayor Walter Peck (William Atherton), with Phoebe drawing particular scorn. However, original Ghostbuster Ray Stantz (Dan Ackroyd) may hold the key to regaining everyone's affection for them, when a mysterious orb in his possession unleashes the spirit of Gorocca, an ancient God with the power to plunge the city into a deep freeze.
Following 2021's Ghostbusters: Afterlife, writer/director Gil Kenan brings the franchise back to the big screen, forty years after the iconic original film was released, and determined to keep the series rolling. With the current stars and the original actors meeting at a crossroads, it's a weird reflection of how far the series has come, and where it may be stuck. With all the original stars crammed in together with the new performers, it's an overstuffed egg resulting in too many characters to keep up with, and clearly still too clingy to its original source material.
As a big screen, visual spectacle, it's still an impressive, immersive experience, the kind of thing 3D was created for, and on this front could provide a fun day out for all the family. The special effects, then, make it a sort of fun ride. But of course, they can't compensate for a weak, flat plot, and unfunny, forced humour, that the original managed so effortlessly. While original stars Ackroyd and Ernie Hudson as Winston Zeddemore, who's now an entrepreneur, seem to embrace the whole thing as wildly as they can, strangely its original rivals Murray and Atherton who seem more reluctant, with Atherton's arsey, bureaucratic Peck now more awkwardly inserted into scenes, while Murray shows up for roughly half an hour towards the end. This uneven distribution of faith in the project between the stars is one of the many disconcerting things about the whole thing.
If you're in an especially undemanding mood, it does provide a decent, flashy fun ride, but there's very little beneath the surface beyond a commercial interest in keeping the franchise going, and letting the quality take a backslide. **