so i just saw it and it was just pretty boring.
ghostbusters 2 felt like a stitched-together collection of skits for harold ramis, dan aykroyd, and bill murray to do things they thought were funny and kind of added in characters from the first movie to complete it (the biggest offender being ray suddenly being able to do an improv new york construction worker accent and play flawlessly off of venkman).
answer the call felt like the same thing. it felt like it was just a stitched-together collection of improv sessions with a bit of action in the middle. like the scene where they're in the mayor's office and arguing about putting cats back into the bag and it goes on forever.
i liked patty, and i would go as far as to say she was the only character i actually liked. i wanted to love holtzman since it looked like kate mckinnon was having fun, and i like kate mckinnon a whole lot, but she wound up being pretty one-note. what i think this movie lacked was weight. patty gives it that, in that she is probably the most realistic person in the whole movie. the problem i have is that no one seems to care about anything going on in the movie except for patty. holtzman freaks out when rowan starts wrecking her gear, but that's essentially it. patty refers to the mannequin room as the room of nightmares. that's great! in ghostbusters, the guys run from the first ghost they see, peter screams into the walkie-talkie as the second ghost he sees charges him, egon and peter back away from ray's proton pack, peter lets winston and ray go up the stairs before him in dana barret's apartment, crossing the streams is bad, egon becomes terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought, they all struggle with money problems at the start of the film... i felt like there were threats being taken seriously.
in ghostbusters: answer the call, bill murray's character is killed, and not only do the characters not seem to care, but there is no consequence for it (they get interviewed by the cops and i guess 'a ghost did it' works for them? the ghostbusters in ghostbusters were jailed for an explosion but these women don't get put into a holding cell for the death of a man?). the women get kicked out of their respective colleges - a shlubby guy awkwardly chases them with a baseball bat. they can't afford the firehouse - they can afford the place above the chinese food restaurant, and erin can still live in her own place, without any sort of income, apparently. the mayor won't let them be ghostbusters - they can still be ghostbusters in private (with no funding). rowan kills himself in front of them - whoa, a dead guy!
it's really my main complaint about the movie. and it's weird because i think spy is actually pretty funny and has weight and consequences and fun jokes. ghostbusters: answer the call feels like people trying to say funny things while doing a ghostbusters origins story. ghostbusters didn't need an origins story. we don't need to know where the proton packs come from, where the car comes from, or where they get the logo. and the firehouse being an achievement for winning the video game that was this movie was a weird way to put the ghostbusters in this film at roughly the place the ghostbusters from the first movie were about 20 minutes into that film.
there's some funny stuff. the mayor from jaws line is great because of his overreaction - the implication being this has happened before and enough where he just snaps. i liked some, but not most of kevin's dumbness.
i guess that's it. it's harmless and i hope some people enjoy it. i would probably be down for a sequel if the characters reacted to things more like actual people would.