Review: Four awesome ladies put the bust in Ghostbusters

The new Ghostbusters movie is just what a reboot should be, says Raja Sen.

Hang on to your hats, ghosts. There’s a brand new gunlickin’ gunslinger in town and she ain’t in the mood for prisoners.

One other thing she ain’t is alone. Dr Jillian Holtzmann has friends alongside her on screen in the new Ghostbusters — wearing proton packs of her own dangerous design — but, more importantly, she and the fine comediennes rocking the boat in this warmly silly reboot are giving company to cosplaying girls everywhere who have wanted goofy heroes like this for so, so long.

This is a gleefully dumb summer feature, unapologetically silly and often too smitten with its own leads — in short, it’s what a big dumb shaggy-dog blockbuster should be. Only with ladies rocking the jumpsuits this time.

The original Ghostbusters, from 1984, is a deliriously daft film raised occasionally to sublime heights by Bill Murray finding his groove. An actor finding his brilliance is a thing that happens gradually, over many a moment in many a movie, but Murray seemed to roller-skate into magnificence almost entirely at one go, and most of us watching Ghostbusters were privy to that bit of magic.

Ivan Reitman’s film is fine — it’s crazily enjoyable and gets better with each viewing, and if you didn’t see it in the eighties, well, you’re never going to love it the same way — but the actors were what made it sparkle, and the characters remain unforgettable. (I’m an Egon man, myself.)

Director Peter Feig understands that, and while his reboot celebrates women as well as the spirit(s?) of the original, it never tries to replicate the sparkle those gents conjured up. This film doesn’t mimic the superb silences and slow-burn, rolled-eye jokes of the old film.

Instead, it lets these wonderful ladies try on the suits and situations and let their hair down their own way. It turns out to be giddily, infectiously fun and frequently forgettable. This is not a film trying to be brilliant; instead, it stays simple while it breaks ground. It is as if Feig has made it his mission statement to tell the world — with films like Bridesmaids, The Heat and Spy — that hey, women are allowed to be juvenile too.

Like in the original, the plot is flimsy and peppered with gags. Like in the original, characters who believe in ghosts are laughed out by respectable naysayers. Like in the original, there is a Mayor who gets very hands-on with what our heroes are upto. Like in the original, Slimer is around, big and green and disgustingly infatuated with hotdogs — only this time he is, rather unnecessarily, in 3D. (The 3D is a waste in Ghostbusters simply because Feig lays it on a bit too thick and the climax gets especially tedious and shouty, when all we really want is more of Kristen Wiig giggling at their sexy receptionist.)

Speaking of which… we need to talk about Kevin. A picture-perfect specimen of manhood and doltishness, Kevin the receptionist can barely handle picking up the phone, but is kept around (and shamelessly, repeatedly objectified) because of the way he looks. Played by Thor star Chris Hemsworth, this sounds like a simple dumb blond gag — a gimmick even — but because of the way Feig and Hemsworth commit to the sheer imbecility of the eye-candy-only character, the result is as hilarious as the jibe is well-deserved.

Kevin’s bosses are Dr Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy), Dr Erin Gilbert (Kirsten Wiig), the aforementioned Dr Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon) and Patty (Leslie Jones). Each actress picks a flavour and sticks with it, and the cast mostly breezes through it.

McCarthy, Feig’s muse, has the straightest role but she’s the one who makes exposition appear momentarily reasonable, and has a great, great line about soup; Wiig is awkward and only eventually enthusiastic, but she sounds wrong and tragically stupid whenever she uses Ghostbustin’ jargon; and Jones, broad and reckless, creates a character who knows New York — and is thus the only one with street smarts.

Like in the original, one Ghostbuster is much more memorable than the rest. A lot of this film’s players have come from Saturday Night Live, but Kate McKinnon is one of that show’s finds — I implore you to look up her Hillary Clinton sketches — and in this film, as she describes potato chips as “salty parabolas,” she is unstoppable.

Wearing a lopsided bouffant that looks styled in Pisa, her Holtzmann is a thing of loony energy and joyous abandon, a nutcase who would rather go nuclear than go home. She’s jawdroppingly good and I can’t wait to see her again.

Some people have an issue with women taking on roles originally written for men. The film addresses this fantastically by having the leading ladies read out (and get repulsed by) comments from online haters, but anyone who can’t enjoy these women having a good time — without even pretending to be Venkman and Stantz — for such dimwitted reasons doesn’t deserve to laugh with this film. It may not be a classic, but the laughs it earns are all its own.

As you may have imagined, the original Ghostbusters all have cameos in this new film. Yes, even the late great Harold Ramis. We see him as a bronzed sculpture at Columbia University, smiling at this new film and, in many ways, that is the single greatest cameo ever. For it lets Egon Spengler live on as both ghost and bust.

Rediff Rating: