by Peter Callaghan

Is it a turd? Is it a pain? No. But neither is it super, man. More a reasonably enjoyable reboot of yet another highly successful eighties franchise whose unique selling point is the much trumpeted four broads and a himbo in place of four blokes and Sigourney with Melissa McCarthy playing, well, Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig as a dipsy physicist with the hots for Chris Hemsworth, Kate McKinnon as Inspector Gadget and Leslie Jones in scene-stealing form as the subway worker-cum-ghost buster Patty “I don’t know if it was a race thing or a lady thing but I’m mad as hell” Tolan.

Plot-wise, it’s back of a fag packet stuff. Renowned physicist Doctor Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) is fired from her university post after a “ghosts are real” video of her and her old school chum Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy) goes viral. Following an enquiry from the owner of a haunted mansion replete with nineteenth century luxuries such as a face bidet and an anti-Irish security fence, they team up with Abby’s paranormal partner in slime Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon) and the gobby Patty Tolan to investigate a series of apparitions at various New York landmarks.

At first, there’s nothing to see here, move along folks as Mayor Bradley (a chubby-cheeked Andy Garcia) tries to starve them of publicity. But eventually, all roads lead to victim-turned-bully Rowan North (Neil Casey) who plans to “charge the lines, create the vortex and break the barriers” between the Dark Side and the Lower East Side by flooding the city with ghosts and bringing about the Fourth Cataclysm. If there’s something strange in your neighbourhood, who you gonna call? Well, if you get through to the hapless receptionist Kevin Beckman (Chris Hemsworth) of Conductors of the Metaphysical Examination aka Ghostbusters for short you’ll be lucky to get a meaningful reply because his phone is in the fish tank and his attention span is shorter than the fish. But get through people do, and the rest as they say is a rehash of history.

There’s nothing particularly bad about this reboot by Bridesmaid director Paul Feig and his co-writer Katie Dippold, it’s just that other than the all-female leads there’s nothing particularly original about it either. And given that many of the cast and creatives have backgrounds in stand-up and improv, the humour is tepid to say the least: the scene in which Hemsworth tells his bosses-to-be that his pet dog is called Mike Hat is a particular low point. Sure, the visual effects are engaging, the cameos by Bill Murray et al are enjoyable and the catchy theme tune along with the Marshmallow Man and the Cadillac hearse fair tug at the nostalgic heartstrings. But like the disappointing spin-off of Absolutely Fabulous which was released the previous week, sometimes it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.

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Peter Callaghan
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