The Reviews Are Coming In…

and they’re not good. Hollywood Reporter reviews the fem re-boot of 1984’s Ghostbusters:

However, although the new Ghostbusters follows the template of the original by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, the witless script by Feig and his co-writer on The Heat, Katie Dippold, has no juice. Short on both humor and tension, the spook encounters are rote collisions with vaporous CG specters that escalate into an uninvolving supernatural cataclysm unleashed upon New York’s Times Square. It’s all busy-ness, noise and chaos, with zero thrills and very little sustainable comic buoyancy.

There’s some knowing amusement in a rep from the Mayor’s office (Saturday Night Live regular Cecily Strong) keeping a lid on public hysteria by using the ghostbusters’ gender to discredit them as “incredibly sad, lonely women.” But those expecting a clever feminist spin or any other sharp 21st century twists will be disappointed, and the upgrade to new-generation VFX yields nothing remarkable.

When I first heard the howls of outrage attending the release of the first trailer for the re-boot, my immediate reaction was what on earth were they thinking? Not only is the original iconic, it was written by two of the funniest writers of their generation and starred some of the funniest performers of their generation.

And then there’s this. Feig’s previous hit, Bridesmaids, grossed $284 million, two-thirds of it from domestic box office and the balance from overseas. Most of the overseas box office came from just two countries: Australia and the United Kingdom. Not entirely surprising. Humor doesn’t translate particularly well. But here’s the point. A $284 million gross on a movie that cost $32 million to make is one thing. The new Ghostbusters reportely cost $150 million to make. To make money they’d need to do a lot better than Bridesmaids. How likely was that? The highest grossing action comedy of all time was Men in Black and that grossed $250 million.

Update

Matt Kamen at Wired liked it:

Ghostbusters is incredibly sharp, with snappy jokes that poke fun at everything from the absurdity of their situation, to politics, to New York property prices (that iconic fire house is far out of the reach of three independently financed researchers). The team’s impeccably dumb himbo secretary Kevin (Chris Hemsworth) is invariably scene-stealing too, his sheer stupidity a brilliant contrast to Hemsworth’s better-known, more serious roles elsewhere. The film’s gags come at a rapid pace, but never feel like they’re trying too hard. It’s close to the perfect action:comedy ratio.

I stick by my analysis. It’s going to take a lot for 2016’s Ghostbusters to succeed.

More. The New York Times reviewer liked it. Vox review: meh.