mosquitor

I'll start by saying this: I came away from this film feeling emotional. There was a lot about its closing stages that was deeply moving, and many will come away from this film with warm tears in their eyes. Tears of nostalgia, sentimentality and love for the legacy of Ghostbusters.

The problem is: many will be blinded by these tears as to just how many flaws this film has, and how the writing and plot developments are often plain poor and illogical. The more I thought about it afterwards, the more I realized the cons of this movie outweigh the pros, and we should not allow sentimentality and our thirst for nostalgia to cloud our perspective of downright poor movie-making.

One thing is for certain: if Jason Reitman intended this film as a 'passing of the torch to a new generation' film, then he failed miserably. The new junior Ghostbusters are flat, bland, one-dimensional and completely uninteresting, and I can't imagine anyone being all that excited to see more action from this team. All they really do is build things up for the eventual climax involving the return of the original Busters, and once Bill Murray and crew appear they grab the spotlight straight off the younger cast members and remind us just how much better the original crew were.

The first act is fairly slow-paced, gradually unravelling the mystery around the central family's links to the original Ghostbusters, the second picks up a bit and you think for a while this may actually be going somewhere good, then the shambolically-executed third act manages to be both intensely moving and truly awful at the same time. Unfortunately, the former cannot excuse the latter.

The 'new' characters for one are one-dimensional and bland; Carrie Coon and Paul Rudd serve as the 'Dana' and 'Louis' figures respectively, both are wasted and given little in the way of intriguing development. McKenna Grace is given the bulk of the action as the leader of the new junior Ghostbusters team, but she's little more than a miniature Egon Spengler clone with few distinguishable character traits of her own. And when it comes to ghosts, there's surprisingly few of them and the ones we do see are either plain unimaginative or lifted straight out of the original film. While the idea of the Shandor Mining Corporation is a neat touch in principle, it seems completely unnecessary other than to enable a whole load of fan service and increasingly desperate reworking of moments and dialogue from the first film. It would have been a far better move to have given us completely new ghosts with a new spectral entity at the epicentre rather than retread old ground ad nauseam. And there is absolutely NO reason for the mini-Stay Pufts to be in it other than hopeless fan service verging on parody. The plot does not call for them whatsoever.

For a time the film drifts into a mindless special effects extravaganza and gives the feel more of a generic fantasy action movie than a Ghostbusters film. Once the original guys appear then it's sentimentality galore and lots of loving tributes to Harold Ramis and the legacy of the first film... but while there are some very moving moments, they belonged in a better movie than this. And there are a few points that may cause die hard fans of the original two movies to raise an eyebrow, particularly concerning the character of Ray Stantz, who in my opinion comes closest here to being bang out of character.

Ultimately, it's hard to fathom exactly what Jason Reitman was thinking with this film, for it's far too heavily reliant on the viewer having seen the first movie in order to get anything from it, any newcomers to the franchise will only think 'what exactly did I just watch?' and it seems to serve little purpose other than being an overly fan fiction-y love letter to his dad's film, that feeds the nostalgia bug far too heavily. Interestingly I have read that he and Ivan Reitman actually clashed over the direction he was taking this film in, and I'm left thinking, maybe you should have listened to daddy. The Ghostbusters are better off in his hands.

I never would have thought I'd say this, but - Paul Feig's 2016 all-female reboot was a better film. For all its flaws, that film at least tried something new and gave us fun and memorable characters who had strong potential. It's probably unfortunate that the proper GB3 was not made back in the 90s as was originally intended, and the franchise may not be in the mess it's in today, but what is ultimately clear is - it's time to retire the Ghostbusters franchise. The original movie was a singular flash of brilliance that will not ever be bettered or replicated. Let's stop tarnishing its legacy with these substandard reboots and sequels. The original movie continues to stand the test of time and will be remembered far better than these well-intentioned but misguided efforts ever will, so let's celebrate its legacy without feeling we need to drag the franchise beyond its natural lifespan - because at this point, busting no longer makes me feel good.

A beautiful modernized version of the Oscar Wilde classic, in which Belinda Bauer gives a moving and poignant performance as the title character, here a female model led astray by the temptations of evil in a sharp allegory of the real-life corruption of celebrity culture and the rich and famous. Anthony Perkins also gives a memorable performance as Henry Lord, the movie's answer to Wilde's legendary Lord Henry Wotton, here a fashion tycoon who takes advantage of Dorian's youthful naivety to seduce her into his corrupt view of life. Despite the modern setting, the storyline's structure is surprisingly close to Wilde's original novel with almost every character, major and minor, given a modern-day equivalent in the narrative. Dorian's gradual descent into total corruption and malevolence is depicted perfectly, as is the eventual destruction of the world and people around her.

A haunting, eerie and dreamlike atmosphere prevails throughout the movie, and the film's answer to the novel's portrait- a screen test on a gigantic screen that grows more repulsive with each sin Dorian commits- is genuinely creepy and disturbing. The beautiful and haunting theme song, sung exquisitely by Lisa D'Albello, is truly stunning and enhances the film's captivating atmosphere perfectly. As each cast member turns in an excellent performance, the film should have the viewer literally on the edge of their seat as it approaches its destructive climax, ending of course on a tragic note that strangely leaves us feeling somehow more sorry for the debased Dorian, and even for Henry (who seems to have mellowed from his corrupt ways after witnessing Dorian's decline), than in the novel.

While some viewers may naturally object to the radical shift in style from Wilde's classic, along with the feminization and thus heterosexualization of the lead character, and of course the absence of Wilde's legendary quotes, this should not dissuade anyone from viewing the film, which is executed as perfectly as could have been possible. Although the film was made for the big screen, it was unfortunately only ever shown on TV due to lack of interest and is virtually unknown to this day. This is a shame, for The Sins of Dorian Gray is a truly beautiful, moving and haunting film that ranks easily among the best ever filmic interpretations of Wilde's novel. A true overlooked work of beauty that should not be missed.