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Ghostbusters Review Thread [Certified Fresh - 75%]

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Sanjuro

Member
I don't know if this is me being defensive, maybe it is-- and I'm not defending the cameos in a critical way, but rather I guess I can understand why they're there. Being a reboot with so many people upset it's not a proper continuation may have led to them feeling obliged to incorporate so many cameos and references out of respect or something.

I still say it should have completely been its own thing, and tonally it still could be, but when those old actors pop up, I fear it may feel disingenuous; again, an obligation, rather than feeling "right."

I think in films such as this, you have down time in the story where you could do a carbon copy of something from the original. Do it early, then deviate back to what your doing.

Based on that reviewer's description, Ed Helms is getting that station wagon about thirty times in this film.
 
I don't know if this is me being defensive, maybe it is-- and I'm not defending the cameos in a critical way, but rather I guess I can understand why they're there. Being a reboot with so many people upset it's not a proper continuation may have led to them feeling obliged to incorporate so many cameos and references out of respect or something.

I still say it should have completely been its own thing, and tonally it still could be, but when those old actors pop up, I fear it may feel disingenuous; again, an obligation, rather than feeling "right."

Yea I agree.

In a way the chorus of clowns yelling about it ruining their childhood likely lead to the seeming need for a ton of cameos and tie-ins.

But its Ghostbusters we're talking about. Who cares? It's not like they rebooted The Godfather.

I've heard this statement a couple times in the thread. It's actually a lot like they rebooted The Godfather.

...you compared this film to Pixels earlier.
 

Sanjuro

Member
Yea I agree.

In a way the chorus of clowns yelling about it ruining their childhood likely lead to the seeming need for a ton of cameos and tie-ins.

But its Ghostbusters we're talking about. Who cares? It's not like they rebooted The Godfather.

I've heard this statement a couple times in the thread. It's actually a lot like they rebooted The Godfather.

...you compared this film to Pixels earlier.

You keep saying this as well. What does this have to do with the prior statement?
 
I didn't think the whole "childhood ruined" thing was an actual thing people said but there was a post on Reddit today from someone trying to explain how the new Ghostbusters is literally ruining his childhood.
 
But its Ghostbusters we're talking about. Who cares? It's not like they rebooted The Godfather.

Time will tell how much it actually bothers me. It sounds bad, but it could go either way depending. If it takes you out of the movie, though, it's a bad thing. I've always been hopeful for this, but I was immediately like ehhh when they announced that some of the original cast were going to be in it. It's just not something I care for. I'm just saying I get why they're probably doing it.

I still think the first movie was lightning in a bottle, the right ingredients, talent, and at the right time. All the original people and the same writers/director did Ghostbusters 2, and while I don't dislike Ghostbusters 2, it's a considerable step down. That's why I've always been like, eh, that ship sailed and there was never any guarantee that it would have been good even if they did GB3 proper.

So I've always liked the idea of a clean slate reboot. But now the problem is that it has all these things from the original in likely washed-up cameo appearances, which could be a drag. It's like, be new and different. Stop reminding me of a great film I've seen 30,000 times.
 

Dalek

Member
I didn't the whole "childhood ruined" thing was an actual thing people said but there was a post on Reddit today from someone trying to explain how the new Ghostbusters is literally ruining his childhood.

I need to see this link please. I'm parched and the only thing that can quench my thirst is tears.

By the way I just went to target and got the Blu-rays of the original two films and I plan to sit down tonight and watch them and check out the special features.
 
Looks like another positive review was added, score is still 74% from what I can tell.

Joe Walsh, Cinevue, 4/5

Some jokes fall flat, the cameos wear thin and the final act, which is a CGI-heavy showdown, steals some of the buzz. Yet there's little doubt that Feig has pulled off a challenging project and given audiences a fresh-faced reboot to the franchise. There's also little doubt that those who wanted to decry Feig's endeavours will fail to be convinced. And yes, the cynical argument that Sony needed a franchise to hold its own against the might of Marvel may have something in it. But put the cynicism aside and what you have is a hilarious action-comedy that puts four great comedic women front and centre, with Feig dexterously balancing homage with originality.
 
I'm honestly expecting a plummet into the 60's range when all's said and accounted for. Which is still about 60% higher than what a lot of people felt it would be lol
 

cr0w

Old Member
I think the need to "justify" the reboot in the eyes of fans led to the connections to the originals in terms of the cameos and call-backs, which weren't announced until later in production. They may have gotten a little twitchy and thought they were necessary and that the blessings of the OG cast and crew would appease the more vocal critics out there, but that also belies a lack of faith in the new version. It would probably have benefitted from a complete separation from the originals more than anything.
 

Pilgrimzero

Member
The review that calls it a Real Gbostbusters is how I envisioned it to be. It's a reboot of the cartoon. Makes more sense that way.
 

Kevin

Member
Wasn't that interested in this (loved both of the originals) but the reviews are not quite as low as I was anticipating. I think the overall Rotten Tomatoes score will level off in the low 60s most likely but it sounds like the film may be at least worth a rental or Netflix watch.
 
I think the need to "justify" the reboot in the eyes of fans led to the connections to the originals in terms of the cameos and call-backs, which weren't announced until later in production. They may have gotten a little twitchy and thought they were necessary and that the blessings of the OG cast and crew would appease the more vocal critics out there, but that also belies a lack of faith in the new version. It would probably have benefitted from a complete separation from the originals more than anything.

Fully agreed. If this one is successful enough, and I think it may very well be, hopefully they dial back the cameos next time. I don't mind referential elements-- but seeing Bill, Dan, Sigourney, Ernie, Annie etc. is going to remind me of the original. I don't want to be reminded of it. If the next one has something in it like Gozer for example, that wouldn't bother me. It's an element of Ghostbusters. Just seeing those familiar faces at every turn is what spooks me about it.

People that have seen it have been criticizing the cameos as one of the worst things about it, so it sounds like they should've had that faith and ran with it.
 
I need to see this link please. I'm parched and the only thing that can quench my thirst is tears.

By the way I just went to target and got the Blu-rays of the original two films and I plan to sit down tonight and watch them and check out the special features.

I went out and ordered the original DVD prints several years ago because they had an MST3K style shadow director's commentary with Reitman Raimis among others iirc.


That won't likely be on the bluray (don't think so anyway, I have the set myself haven't opened it yet lol)

But the track itself should be there and it's great
 

Dalek

Member
I went out an order the original DVD pints several years ago because they had an MST3K style shadow director's commentary with Reitman Raimis among others iirc.


That won't likely be on the bluray (don't think so anyway, I have the set myself haven't opened it yet lol)

But the track itself should be there and it's great
I still have that DVD!
 

Koyuga

Member
I'm honestly expecting a plummet into the 60's range when all's said and accounted for. Which is still about 60% higher than what a lot of people felt it would be lol

I'm really interested in seeing where it ends up. Top critics is sitting at 44%, but more reviews will roll in soon enough. I'm expecting it to settle in either the high 30's or low 50's.
 
I'm really interested in seeing where it ends up. Top critics is sitting at 44%, but more reviews will roll in soon enough. I'm expecting it to settle in either the high 30's or low 50's.

Don't think it'll go that low. While there will be plenty more reviews you can sort of get a decent gauge as there's upwards of 50 reviews counted so far. There would have to be something of a dramatic shift to get it down as low as the 30's though I suppose anything is possible and these initial reviews could all be shills.
 

Lothar

Banned
Between this and this:



I'm starting to think you really wanted this film to be worse than it is.

I'm sorry, it's just not.



Because it encapsulated all the absurd criticism about this film - people were calling it a disaster before they had any idea how good/bad it'd be.

Now that it's here and it's actually pretty good, that criticism is even *more* absurd than it already was.

They called it a disaster when they looked at the trailer which was a disaster. There's nothing absurd about that.
 
They called it a disaster when they looked at the trailer which was a disaster. There's nothing absurd about that.

You keep pretending like all the uproar started at first trailer.

Shit the downvote brigade was there on the show absolutely nothing teaser teaser.
 
They called it a disaster when they looked at the trailer which was a disaster. There's nothing absurd about that.

If the movie is actually good, Sony desperately needs to reshuffle their marketing team.

I'm optimistic about the movie and also found the trailers to be bad. But I can look past that as trailers aren't the movie. They brought my hype down a bit as there's some pretty bad stuff in them, but in context they could work out a bit better and they also don't account for a 105 minute film.
 

Nudull

Banned
Don't think it'll go that low. While there will be plenty more reviews you can sort of get a decent gauge as there's upwards of 50 reviews counted so far. There would have to be something of a dramatic shift to get it down as low as the 30's though I suppose anything is possible and these initial reviews could all be shills.

Why are people suggesting that this film would be bombarded with shill reviews? Hell, BvS would've likely had more shills, being what it was, and look how that turned out.
 
Why are people suggesting that this film would be bombarded with shill reviews? Hell, BvS would've likely had more shills, being what it was, and look how that turned out.

Oh I was joking, at this point I feel like the joke's too obvious. Some people feel this way though, yeah.
 
Why are people suggesting that this film would be bombarded with shill reviews? Hell, BvS would've likely had more shills, being what it was, and look how that turned out.

Because there's a certain collection of people that believe that this can't possibly be good or decent under any circumstances.
 
I didn't the whole "childhood ruined" thing was an actual thing people said but there was a post on Reddit today from someone trying to explain how the new Ghostbusters is literally ruining his childhood.
It originated from Ain't It Cool and it's a phrase that stuck with the nerd community.
 
I've heard this statement a couple times in the thread. It's actually a lot like they rebooted The Godfather.



You keep saying this as well. What does this have to do with the prior statement?

First you said it was comparable to a movie that it is reviewing over 4x the RT score of (and their premises are nothing alike).

Then you're saying its like they rebooted Godfather (which makes no sense at all unless you're saying the Ghostbusters '87 is like the Godfather.... to which I say: what?).
 

Sanjuro

Member
First you said it was comparable to a movie that it is reviewing over 4x the RT score of (and their premises are nothing alike).

Then you're saying its like they rebooted Godfather (which makes no sense at all unless you're saying the Ghostbusters '87 is like the Godfather.... to which I say: what?).

You're kind of all over the place. I'm not really sure what you are attempting to get at.

Pixels and this Ghostbusters film have similarities.

Godfather is regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, so is Ghostbusters from the comedy genre.
 

Lothar

Banned
You keep pretending like all the uproar started at first trailer.

Shit the downvote brigade was there on the show absolutely nothing teaser teaser.

The outrage before the trailer was absurd, not the outrage after the trailer. Not people like Rolfe who there was a million dumb articles about.
 
All the salt & fire about the film just makes me want to try and sneak into a screening and pop early impressions in

Steer the narrative!
 

Tremis

This man does his research.
The reviews end up sounding like people who enjoy Feig's style of humor are enjoying this which is nice for them!

On the topic of Feig, as some suggested, I did finally give Bridesmaids a chance and had to stop at 15min in.

For some reason, Feig tends to let a joke get run into the ground (see wedding announcement speech at the beginning) much further than I can stand and still maintain some believability to the characters.

Like, I get that a joke can sometimes evolve if you prolong it, but at some point it just turns into an obvious/obnoxious adlib/improv from the actors that just seems masturbatory to me. "This is 40" had this quite a bit as well and nearly ruined the movie for me so Apatow is guilty of this too.

That and the one-off characters that exist purely as 1 dimensional joke machines stood out to me like a sore thumb and kept pulling me out of the movie. When I saw Chris Hemsworth in the trailers, I immediately felt this same way, unfortunately.

I need my comedies to have somewhat more believability to them to enjoy the humor fully. For example, Neighbors rode the line just barely for me, but is guilty of some of the same issues (dick joke euphemism scene). The discussions relating to having a kid are what kept me involved though, as they are definitely realistic to me at least.

Is there any critic who hated Bridesmaids that liked this one? I guess we'll have to wait and see.
 
I didn't like Bridesmaids. It wasn't for me, but I thought it was well written, acted and directed.

I did enjoy Spy. That's about all I have to go on when it comes to Feig.
 
The reviews end up sounding like people who enjoy Feig's style of humor are enjoying this which is nice for them!

On the topic of Feig, as some suggested, I did finally give Bridesmaids a chance and had to stop at 15min in.

For some reason, Feig tends to let a joke get run into the ground (see wedding announcement speech at the beginning) much further than I can stand and still maintain some believability to the characters.

Like, I get that a joke can sometimes evolve if you prolong it, but at some point it just turns into an obvious/obnoxious adlib/improv from the actors that just seems masturbatory to me. "This is 40" had this quite a bit as well and nearly ruined the movie for me so Apatow is guilty of this too.

That and the one-off characters that exist purely as 1 dimensional joke machines stood out to me like a sore thumb and kept pulling me out of the movie. When I saw Chris Hemsworth in the trailers, I immediately felt this same way, unfortunately.

I need my comedies to have somewhat more believable to enjoy the humor fully. For example, Neighbors rode the line just barely for me, but is guilty of some of the same issues (dick joke euphemism scene). The discussions relating to having a kid are what kept me involved though, as they are definitely realistic to me at least.

Is there any critic who hated Bridesmaids that liked this one? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

It's important to note that the writers of Bridesmaids (Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo) aren't the same as the writer for GB (Katie Dippold), so it's possible that the comedic styling may differ somewhat even with the same director at the helm.

Incidentally, I re-watched Bridesmaids for the first time in a few years last night. It's a film that I still enjoy overall, but don't enjoy as much as I do The Heat (which got generally worse reviews) or Spy.
 
First you said it was comparable to a movie that it is reviewing over 4x the RT score of (and their premises are nothing alike).

Then you're saying its like they rebooted Godfather (which makes no sense at all unless you're saying the Ghostbusters '87 is like the Godfather.... to which I say: what?).

I think a lot of people would agree the original Ghostbusters films is one of the all time classic action comedy films the same way the Godfather is one of the all time classic crime dramas. Both films IMO are basically perfect in that what they set out to do they did flawlessly and both films hold up and resonate with a large audience today.

Reading the posts I imagine the "pixels" comparison is more in terms of the style of humor and the way the cg effects are done. In both Pixels and the clips we've seen from Ghostbusters 2016 a lot of the action is done in obvious green screen and it takes viewers of the clips and a lot of reviewers out of the movie. Pixels has a lot of moments that fall flat since it uses reference jokes to old video games the way Ghostbusters 2016 does to the original which is also something most critics agree is a weakness of the reboot. The difference is that the stuff in between the bad cgi scenes and the bad reference jokes are well done and fun according to the reviewers depending upon how much you like that style of comedy that Feig specializes in, unlike Pixels where everything between the bad cg and bad reference jokes is bad Adam Sandler comedy.
 

Tremis

This man does his research.
It's important to note that the writers of Bridesmaids (Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo) aren't the same as the writer for GB (Katie Dippold), so it's possible that the comedic styling may differ somewhat even with the same director at the helm.

Incidentally, I re-watched Bridesmaids for the first time in a few years last night. It's a film that I still enjoy overall, but don't enjoy as much as I do The Heat (which got generally worse reviews) or Spy.

Ahh, thanks for the info. I may check out Spy at some point.

Bizarrely, the adlib style in Home Movies (your avatar) is some of my favorite comedy ever, so perhaps movies as a medium just lead me to a different level of expectation.

P.S. The laser eye surgery episode never ceases to destroy me.
 
The outrage before the trailer was absurd, not the outrage after the trailer. Not people like Rolfe who there was a million dumb articles about.

The outrage after the trailer was the same as before with two new groups: ones that didn't care for the trailer and left it at that, and ones that didn't like the trailer but also believed (and who would state repeatedly ad nauseam) that since the still very real and very prevalent sexist garbage was still being talked about that it must mean that they too are being accused of sexism and thus felt a need to tell everyone that we need to stop talking about the sexism stuff and stop calling everyone sexists, and that besides it's overstated anyway.

Also outrage period at something that is politically benign and was at worst just a bad trailer is silly anyway.

Rolfe was perfectly absurd. He outright said he didn't care if it was good or bad, none of his actions were inspired by the trailer at all. It wasn't exactly what and how he wanted it so he wasn't going to see it. Shit literally one of his complaints was that he now ad to say Ghostbusters 1984.
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
74% on RT? So not a mindblowing film but still a good film nonetheless. I can work with that.
 

Lothar

Banned
Rolfe was perfectly absurd. He outright said he didn't care if it was good or bad, none of his actions were inspired by the trailer at all. It wasn't exactly what and how he wanted it so he wasn't going to see it. Shit literally one of his complaints was that he now ad to say Ghostbusters 1984.

Quote from his video: "Judging from the trailers, it looks awful. So instead of doing..."
 
Quote from his video: "Judging from the trailers, it looks awful. So instead of doing..."

And then he says maybe it's good, maybe it's better than the trailers, says that he doesn't really care that it looks bad (that's not his problem with it), that he watches bad stuff all the time and then proceeds to say the "real problem" he has with it is the title. Literally half of his video is that they didn't call it Ghostbusters: Subtitle with most of the rest being it should have been a sequel.

Like I said absurd. He didn't care about it being good or bad at all, just that it wasn't the exact type of movie he wanted.

Plus he's a guy who literally makes money watching and reviewing bad shit, but this is where he draws the line?
 
P.S. The laser eye surgery episode never ceases to destroy me.

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"Look, it is statistically impossible that no one here knows someone who died"
 
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