Ghostmates

Smosh's second feature film, "Ghostmates," is so unbelievably incompetent that I don't know where to begin.

It's a movie starring YouTube comedians Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla, known for their channel Smosh, as Eddie and Charlie. On the day he wants to ask his girlfriend Jessica (Francesca Galassi) to move in with him, he inadvertently chokes himself to death on his necktie when it gets caught in the door. But instead of going to heaven, Eddie is doomed to haunt the apartment until he can make things right on Earth and put himself at peace.

Enter Charlie, an unemployed cartoonist and electronics salesman who's been out of work for six months, yet somehow has money to shell out for a new home. He moves into the dead Eddie's suite, and Eddie twists his arm into helping him set things right so he can ascend to heaven. All of this is in spite of Eddie having the ability to interact with the world, like using a ketchup bottle to write on the wall or being able to enter people's bodies to possess them, and with a skill set like that, it's anyone's guess why Eddie needs Charlie to help him at all.

Even with a premise as worn and as overused as this one, the Smosh team still manages to make a mess of it. They don't add anything new, exciting, or surprising to a very predictable story, but that's not even the worst part of it. Even the easiest things they manage to muck up. There's no consistency for how Eddie the Ghost behaves, for example. He's able to walk through walls and inhabit people's bodies, but when his ex-girlfriend tries to touch his hand, hers doesn't phase through his. Eddie is also only able to lift up objects, it seems, when the plot demands it, because there are numerous circumstances when conflict could have been resolved if Eddie had just picked something up to prove he's actually a ghost.

On a technical level, the direction is lazy, the sound mix is abysmal, and the cinematography is that of a YouTube video with no effort being made to make it appear cinematic. Shadows on people's faces at nighttime? Really? For being produced by YouTube Red, this is a film that shows very little production value.

Its pacing is also abhorrent, and we don't even meet Padilla's character until we're almost at the 10-minute mark. Eddie doesn't even have a goal until 20 minutes into the movie. The middle is paced just fine, but there aren't any stakes for our awkward goofball leads, and the ending third is just speedy and weightless.

Yet the film's main folly is that its target audience is one that doesn't even know what the word "folly" means. Plot points are repeated over and over again, messages are hammered into the viewer like a brick to the face, and all of the comedy completely lacks both humor and subtlety. The "jokes" screenwriter Ryan Finnerty and stars Hecox and Padilla have devised for this film are uncannily bereft of any punchlines. And when there are comedic situations in the film, they exist only for a joke and not to serve the story. Why is T. Pain in this film? Because someone thought it'd be funny. Why is there a conversation about corn dogs that goes on for a full minute and serves no purpose to the plot? Because someone thought it'd be funny. Why does the story grind to a halt for an out-of-nowhere and probably offensive Bollywood spoof? Because someone thought it'd be funny.

That the film's jokes are aimed at such a young demographic that its audience wouldn't even care about the lack of punchlines would be forgivable if not for how seriously the film takes itself.

The things that people love about Smosh, based on their Food Fight videos alone, is their unabashed goofiness, their absurdist sense of humor, and their fast-paced, zany action. "Ghostmates" has none of this. It's taking two comedians known for their silliness and placing them in a grounded, dramatic piece that puts a dull story before the comedy, and I'm sure that's something that no one -- not even Smosh fans -- wants to see.

One of those goofy-humor, clichéd but still entertaining plot lines, sprinkled with bits of originality here and there. Self-absorbed Eddie fails his girlfriend, who leaves him. Eddie tries to go after her but gets trapped and dies a rather confusing death. Enter Charlie, the token socially-inept new guy who OF COURSE is the only one who can see dead people, or at least just Eddie. Eddie immediately falls into the trolling asshole ghost role before dropping the "if you help me move on I'll stop bothering you", and the race is on. Then we get the token ghost's-ex-girlfriend-who-doesn't-like-Charlie-at-first, although it doesn't end like we think it will. The humor is silly, some parts are predictable but there are some unexpectedly fresh takes in the plot. If you're a ghost story fan or just like this particular genre, it's not a complete waste of time.

The Smosh dudes pull another rabbit out of their funny hats! Ghostmates is the second Smosh feature film and they are consistently funny again!

The story is simple - Ed dies a goofy death and Charlie must help Ed achieve three goals before he can go to heaven. And the adventure begins! They meet two girls that are just superb carefree characters and loves follows. There is even a Bollywood takeoff in the story which is wonderfully done.

Watch it! It's worth every minute.

Writing more about the story will only ruin it for those who haven't seen it.

Bad movie, didnt meet my expectationsbro :(( just a waste of time

Honestly, this movie was okay, maybe a little less than average. The plot is tried-and-true, but it's not executed that well. Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox, well known for their YouTube channel Smosh, do a fair job of keeping the watcher watching the movie because of their chemistry that is brought over from their web series, but even that becomes a little bit shaky.

Anthony plays Charlie, a socially inept cartoonist who is currently jobless, and Ian plays Ed, a recently perished young man who is forever doomed to stay "earthbound" (that's a reference to an awesome show that I will not mention directly) until he makes right with all the people that he left with on bad terms. I find the similarities between these two characters and the characters that both Anthony and Ian play on Smosh, as Ian plays the guy who tries to goad Anthony into doing something that Anthony doesn't want to do.

Ian's character Ed has some quirks that can be found funny to the right person. He uses the word penultimately incorrectly which actually ends up being a good thing for everyone in the end.

Overall, this film is one of those where you can take it or leave it. It doesn't bring anything special or new to film, but you can still enjoy it for what it is.