S.O.S. fantômes

What's to say? At this point the movie is so mired in controversy that any opinion on it seems like a political statement more than a movie review. But here we go anyway - I didn't like it. It feels less like a movie with an idea (in this case a recycled one) and more like one of the many subpar comedies we have today where a few comedians who are friends in real life get together and give us two hours of smug back-patting. It offers nothing memorable of its own, just a few reworked things from the original movie, which was a classic with many iconic images and scenes. The only thing anyone will remember about this is the controversy surrounding it. I don't care much for Melissa McCarthy or Leslie Jones but I do like Kristen Wiig and I'm trying very hard to like Kate McKinnon (perhaps too hard). None of these women are impressive here. Chris Hemsworth's character is used too much. It's an obvious joke that doesn't get funnier the more you tell it. Ultimately the problem with this movie isn't that "women aren't funny," so much as comedy writers today are very lazy and uninspired.

.... to quote a good Columbia (Sony) film from the classic era, trashing the fans before the film even comes out. But that was what Sony did when they got a negative reaction from their trailers and could see the train wreck that was coming that would be the release of this film.

The humor in this film is very forced, broad, and silly, where the original Ghostbusters film featured dry intelligent humor often coming from just who the characters were and how they interacted.

The villain was just awful. He seemed like he was yanked straight out of a cartoon or comic book. The scene at the rock concert - which is shown in trailers - is just goofy. It was like I was watching live action Scooby Doo. Throwing a story into the middle of a concert never really bodes well unless you want to conjure up images of rubber suited turtles doing the 'ninja rap'.

And last but not least, this film has absolutely zero problem defying the rules that are established. Proton beams hold the ghosts, the traps capture them until they're ready to be shoved off into a containment unit. They follow the same rules throughout most of the film, but then near the end, the Ghostbusters start using proton beams as if they were able to destroy ghosts, gunslinger style. What the??

Because there are fans of this franchise going back 35 years, history matters. And this installment just destroyed all of that. This is not the worst film ever made, but it is definitely not worth your time.

I'm afraid this is not a good film.

I like some things of it. Some people complain about the CGI but I really think the monsters/phantasm were good and it's the only one thing that is better than the OG (obviously due to tech limitations at that time). I also think some of the scenes at the end work even they are merely a copy of the OG and not better than it. I also liked some of the origin details, like the logo or the song.

However, this film has 4 major issues:

1st, the cast. Leslie Jones is the best one, she knows when to do her thing, when to stop, when to listen, she is funny, it doesn't feel forced. McKinnon is super praised and I get why. Even if I didn't love her role - sometimes it seems she replaced the lack of any substance by weird expressions all the time - she is charismatic and I can clearly see her working very well with a better plot. But then...Melissa McCarthy is so bland here, so insipid, I can't even remember a single take from her. Wigg, on the other hand...I would prefer to forget what I remember. There is one good moment from her (when she met Hemsworth character) but all the rest is super annoying, super unnatural and not funny. Hemsworth's role is funny (in fact, the funniest when it works) and good to see until...it's too repetitive and more of the same.

2nd, the plot/story. I'm still trying to find out how do you want to reboot a classic film with this story to tell. It doesn't make sense. It would work potentially as a stand-alone episode if they decided to create a TV series with 12 episodes per season, as a film is not enough. After 15 minutes, I don't even remember the villain and why he did what he did. I don't understand how things scalated so quickly.

3rd, the editing. What an atrocious thing. This film would work so much better with less 20/25 minutes, with much less stupid (and weak) jokes...sometimes you can even see when they did several takes with scenes not matching from different angles. Yeah, that bad.

I will never get why you have to remake a movie if it is not to make it better. It's been a long time since I saw the Ghostbusters from 1984 but I know for sure that I liked that one better. Why would you spend so much money to a movie that is already been made before and even better? I really don't get it. This remake is painful to watch. The only decent comedian was Leslie Jones. At least she was a bit funny. But Melissa McCarthy, she's a total nightmare to watch. Why people like her as a comedian is a mystery to me. Her humor level is at zero point zero and the most annoying thing about her is her extremely irritating voice. Kate McKinnon and Chris Hemsworth were also a nightmare to watch. The special effects would have been good for 1984 but not for 2016. I so wished I would have watched the first Ghostbusters again instead of this failure.

6.8?!?! How is this rated higher than the 1989 sequel?!?

This movie was awful. Like, really bad. I'm a huge Ghostbusters fan, but this was not it. Such a pointless movie to make, terribly acted and I'm pretty sure the rating was rigged somehow. Either that, or people have terrible taste in movies. The other three movies in the franchise were great, but this was horrible. Only thing remotely enjoyable (if I had to choose SOMETHING) was the cameo appearances by some of the original cast. Other than that... ummm... hmmm... cure for insomnia.

And that's it. Don't waste you time. Watch anything else.....