Ghostbusters is a film directed by Paul Feig, (Bridesmaids, Spy) starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones, and a reboot to the 1984 hit movie of the same name. Boy am I gonna have a lot to talk about.

The story of this movie is that three scientists and a subway token taker team up together. They try to prove that ghosts are real but mainly try to bust ghosts and save New York from paranormal apocalypse.

Not too long ago I watched the original Ghostbusters from beginning to end for the first time. I really enjoyed what the movie had to offer. I thought some of the dialogue in the movie was brilliant and the chemistry between the characters was great. The movie had a serious tone for its time while still trying to be funny. Keep this in mind.

Despite what I just said, this isn’t exactly meant to be a comparison video to the original Ghostbusters movie, although I will be using it as a source to provide points throughout this review.

In terms of plot and how this movie unfolds, this movie is a lot like the original Ghostbusters. There are some tweaks here and there but in the end, the two movies are vastly similar. As with just about any movie I can think of, if a film like this follows a similar formula to another movie, perhaps in the same franchise, can be different too, I don’t really care, I would only like it if it is done with clarity, effort, and excellence. Does this film master in any of those specifications? Read to find out!

The marketing campaign for this movie, at least to my concern, was deplorable. The first trailer became the most disliked trailer in YouTube history. I hated it too, in fact if you never knew, I did a full analysis on it because it seemed like the right thing to do. The future trailers were better but weren’t enough to make me think this movie would be good. Not to mention, it almost seems like propaganda to get people to vote for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Something such as that isn’t really meant to fit in a Ghostbusters movie. Is the movie better than how it’s marketed to be? No way in hell.

I’m gonna analyze each lead cast member for this film one by one, starting with Melissa McCarthy. She played the character of Abby Yates and right off the bat I hated her. Why? She had a really unlikable personality. Sure, I may have liked it when they were testing weapons, and she seemed to bring a little charm to it, JUST A LITTLE, NOT TOO MUCH. However, I saw her as a jerk at the beginning of the movie. First of all, she publishes a book which she and Kristen Wiig’s character have been working on without permission on her part, and she basically makes a big deal out of what she had delivered (or lack thereof) to her by a Chinese delivery guy. Also keep this in mind, this is the first “male” problem I have in this movie.

Up next is Kristen Wiig’s character, Erin Gilbert. In the first trailer, she was displayed as a quantum physics powerhouse. Out of all the female leads in this movie, she was probably the least annoying out of all of them. Not to mention the least cartoony. Despite that, Erin seemed pretty forgettable as a character for the most part.

We now go to the unbelievably cartoony Kate McKinnon, or Jillian Holtzmann. If this movie were animated or made primarily for children, I would have liked this character more. Instead, it just reminded me of the following: 1. Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman. 2. Willy Wonka in Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. 3. A mad scientist that tries to perfect their evil laugh, and has Einstein-like hair. What do these have in common? They’re all cartoony! Kate McKinnon is basically #3, minus the hair and laugh. Her character doesn’t entirely fit in a Ghostbusters movie, she’s more likely to fit on an animated TV show aimed at kids that airs on Nickelodeon.

Now we get to Leslie Jones’s Patty Tolan. I had no hype for this character. I called months ago that she would end up as my least favorite character in a movie released in 2016. She was annoying, but not as annoying as I thought she would be. Nevertheless, I hated this character for multiple reasons. The movie displays her as a stereotype in some instances. As I saw in the previews, she came off as a stereotypical African American that seems to scream all the time. It’s basically what would happen if Samuel L. Jackson was a woman and became more annoying. Now, I’m NOT saying women are annoying, NEITHER am I saying Leslie Jones is annoying. I saw her on the revamped version of Match Game recently and she was funny on that game show, so you already know how I feel about her in person. Also, I never watched “The Exorcist,” but I feel bad for those who have and loved it, because Leslie’s character basically ruins an iconic line from the film. If you’ve seen the trailer, you’d know what I’m talking about. In fact, it’s even in the image above, so you can get your sneak peek there.

Onto the guys now, Chris Hemsworth is also in this movie. He plays a secretary named Kevin. I’ve watched reviews of this movie before going to see it, and a popular opinion among the reviewers I’ve encountered along this matter is that Chris Hemsworth is the funniest part of this movie. Some of these people are saying that because Chris Hemsworth is playing a dumb character. I could agree with you, but then I’d be lying. A stereotype that often comes to mind is a dumb blonde. In this movie, instead of this role belonging to a female, a male got this classification. In all honesty, I wouldn’t have a problem with this… if it were a different movie. Why? This movie is based around girl power, and the fact they have this man here that’s incredibly stupid (not to mention not the first one to show up in the entire flick) makes Paul Feig, the brains behind this film, sexist. This baffles me to the max because there were so many arguments that everyone who worked on this movie, along with several people who anticipated this movie, had the idea that if you were a male and dislike this movie, it means you are sexist or hate women, which is incredibly stupid and a complete insinuation, because I didn’t like the movie all that much for many other reasons. Although to everyone complaining about women being in the movie, I get where you are coming from, but just calm the heck down. It’s a gender, not explosive diarrhea. By the way, Chris Hemsworth is not only displayed as a retard, but as a sexual object. Once again, this is something I personally wouldn’t usually have a problem with. Women are sexualized all the time in certain movies oriented towards guys. Also, this movie is technically supposed to be oriented towards women, but when the director actually ends up calling fans of the original Ghostbusters idiots, and Melissa McCarthy calls everyone who doesn’t like this movie a manchild or a basement dwelling loser who lives with their parents, it all adds up and makes me think that this is just something to make men look bad or like slaves to women. I also want to bring this up, one thing that I found coming out of Kristen Wiig’s character’s mouth are the lines of a perv when it came to Chris Hemsworth. This movie is somewhat aimed at kids, you might want to leave that out. Also compared to the original Ghostbusters, this is insulting. I’ve only seen the orignal Ghostbusters movie once, but looking back based on research, when comparing the two secretaries, the original wasn’t a dumba$s, and while she did feel attracted to the one of the original Ghostbusters, that wasn’t really a signature reason why she was kept around. I have a lot of thoughts on my mind about this character, but I’d probably be getting ahead of myself here.

The main villain of this movie honestly is just a flop. It’s basically what would happen if you take a nerd and decide “Hmm, I’m gonna make them look bad.” This baffles me because three of the four Ghostbusters are nerds too and they just want to defend the world, not destroy it. Which reminds me, this guy decides to unleash an army to cause havoc due to the fact that he has been tormented and left out for many years by others. To be honest, I get where he’s coming from. However, it just makes a giant mess. As I’m writing this, it almost sounds like another attack on guys, even though it really isn’t. This brings a question to my mind. Are nerds the villain? Or are nerds the hero? It seems obvious that Paul Feig is trying to bring us a lesson here, and if this is supposed to bring out anything in terms of a lesson, it fails. I’m willing to bet that this was inspired by Paul Feig’s hatred towards geeks. This to me however is somewhat intriguing to know because Paul Feig created the TV show “Freaks and Geeks,” which I haven’t seen a lot of, but it’s still good for what I’ve seen. By the way, there’s a quote supporting Paul’s disliking of geeks (end of paragraph). He eventually claimed to have corrected himself saying it’s a certain category of geeks that he can’t stand, however it was never clear to me that was the case after he corrected himself. Anyway if that is the case, it makes no sense. He sees geeks as some of the worst people that he’s ever seen, and if that were the case, he should have wrote in the script that this guy has an interest in something geeky. Examples can include video games, movies, anime, comic books, etc. Sure, this guy is building his own scientific machinery and everything, but so are the Ghostbusters. I’m not saying that a scientist or a mega-genius cannot be a geek, it’s quite likely that a good number of them are, but when you’re writing the script, I want maybe a little more background put in. The only difference between the two is that the Ghostbusters use their machinery for good and the other guy uses his for evil. The best way I can explain this is with two words: “mind-boggling.”

“Geek culture is home to some of the biggest a–holes I’ve ever met in my life…Especially after being attacked by them for months because of this ‘Ghostbusters’ project.”

Not only do I blame Paul Feig for the final product, but I also blame Sony. This should have been Ghostbusters 3. I have never seen Ghostbusters 2, but I heard it was not as good as the first one. No matter how good or bad it turned out, this still should have been a sequel. Before seeing this movie, I found out about Ghostbusters: The Video Game, which came out a few years ago. Several sources suggested that this is the true “Ghostbusters 3,” which I’m fine with. Although if they took the original Ghostbusters and made them pass the torch to a later generation somehow, I would have liked this movie at the very slightest, a little more. I’m not done yet, when Sony found out about the flop of the first trailer, and the excessive dislikes it has gotten along with the horrendous amount of comments involving how people don’t like it, they eventually decided to keep all of the comments that were considerably misogynistic, racist, etc, and delete all of the “valid criticism” that displayed negativity towards the movie and dislikes it received on Sony’s video of the trailer. I have thoughts of Sony paying/forcing people to make positive reviews of the movie, along with them using fake YouTube accounts to make the movie look better, but I can’t say that they’re actually doing that because I don’t have enough evidence to back it up.

Did I mention just about every man this movie has is either an object, stupid, evil, or moronic? Yes, I did but here comes some detail behind it. Chris Hemsworth is buffed up and that’s why the girls keep him around, not to mention dependent, and became evil later in the movie (not a spoiler if you’ve seen the trailers). Bennie, the Chinese Delivery guy is being put down for not giving the right order to Abby Yates, and while Abby has a right to state her order was wrong it seemed like an overreaction, not to mention Bennie points out he didn’t arrive for a long time because he couldn’t get up a flight of stairs (for the record he wasn’t handicapped), it just infuriated me. The mayor in this movie was another attack. There were some similarities to the mayor in the original Ghostbusters but it’s still an attack. Zach Woods (Silicon Valley), was in the movie at the beginning. He was a tour guide and he actually does the horror movie cliche of making poor decisions. He wants to see what is behind a door. This isn’t really a spoiler, it’s the beginning of the movie, it’s a ghost. Just goes to show you he’s dumb. There’s a scene in a concert hall where the Ghostbusters come in, and they find the manager. He’s pleased that they’re there and he seems scared, which is understandable, but I was getting a vibe of stupidity from what he was saying. Not to mention he is more concerned about the theater more than anything else. It makes me think: Even the other people’s lives? Even YOUR life? There were cameos for the original Ghostbusters, except Harold Ramis (RIP), all were either dumb, awkward, moronic, etc. Dan Akroyd even once said “I ain’t afraid of no ghost.” As if it weren’t enough of a party pooper in a movie like this, it happened when Kristin Wiig asked him to take her to Chinatown during the final showdown of the film, Dan’s just like “No, I’m not taking you there.” If he was afraid of ghosts, this would be justifiable behavior, however he isn’t. Either that or he just is and Dan Akroyd was supposed to say that for showmanship. Just WOW.

One thing I’m surprised I haven’t talked about is the amount of girl power that was meant to be represented in a movie like this. When you look at the entire movie, it doesn’t look like that. Sure, these girls are trying to find their place in society, but whenever this movie has a moment involving the opposite gender, they’re already brainless in the first place. Not to mention, if you’re gonna make a movie of feminist hopes, you shouldn’t really try to “kill” men per se. Sure, men die in this movie, but that’s not what I’m getting at. What I’m getting at is how this movie is mainly revolved around girl power, that they basically want to forget another gender.

This film also has holes, some of the big ones I noticed are capturing ghosts and putting them in a capsule. While that was stated in the movie that was a planned move, it only happened once. All the other ghosts in the movie were killed. Also, for the one that was captured, it was let go. Another one comes around the final battle in the movie. The Ghostbusters eventually become masters of stunts and action if you will. This makes no sense because these four women did tests prior to this, but none of those were on their skills in martial arts, or combat, or stealth, or anything along those sort of lines. ALL of the testing in this movie involved weapons. It’s basically taking these four women, the new Ghostbusters, and you suddenly turned them all into the Fantastic 4. It goes to show how much of a realistic cartoon this entire movie is. Cartoons are meant to work in cartoons, not HERE. This is a reason why The Flintstones movie was disliked by many. By the way, I haven’t seen all of it, but I’ve seen enough to know it’s bad.

One of the reasons why people loved the original Ghostbusters movie is because people thought it was funny, and with this review I’m probably making it clear that I don’t like this movie for a number of reasons. However, there is something a comedy probably could do to make me forget all of that, which is making me laugh. Did this movie do this job? Oh no it didn’t. Most of the jokes were unfunny, attacks on you-know-who, and references that just fell flat. Chris Hemsworth actually had a joke in one scene about bringing his cat to work, it almost worked but it just felt awkward based on how I already knew about the low IQ of this guy. There was even one scene where the Ghostbusters were talking about Patrick Swayze movies. These included Road House, Point Break, and Ghost (haha). The Ghost movie joke seemed necessary for the topic at hand, but the rest of the references felt out of place and there just for the sake of being there. The funniest moment in the entire movie was a reference to “The Shining.” What makes this more interesting is that I never read the book or seen the movie adaptation for this. Crazy, right?

The end of this movie is just horrible. Slimer is in this movie, and they actually seemed to get him right, that’s right, a prime positive is finally here! Speaking of which, Stay Puft was also in this movie, they RUINED him. That big marshmallow man that was stomping through the city like Godzilla with a smile on his face? Forget him, you’re getting this piece of roasted marshmallow garbage. I don’t want to ruin him for you, but if you watched the original Ghostbusters or have some familiarity with the franchise, you may be in utter disappointment when you see what they did to Stay Puft. Everything throughout the final battle is just overloaded CGI for the most part, and it reminded me of a Wii U game. I don’t mind overloaded CGI as long as it works, but knowing the franchise, it’s not a good mix. One last thing before I give this my official rating, the final villain these busters have to take down, is a PURE insult. It’s an insult to men, and an insult to the Ghostbusters fanbase. Yeah, more than Stay Puft.

Ghostbusters is a massive troll. It tries to promote feminist values while at the same time, it bashes men for the whole movie. This goes out to girls everywhere, I get it, your gender doesn’t get a lot of attention in movies. It’s still male dominated. However this isn’t the movie you deserve. It makes you look bad, it’s not even a clear film to begin with. Also, the backstory behind this movie’s pre-production, production, and post-production makes me hate it even more. I’m gonna give the Ghostbusters reboot a 1/10. Women, this is not the movie you deserve. Directors, producers, everyone in Hollywood, a local studio, or anywhere for that matter, should remember that if a movie has a message or a lesson, it is best presented with effective movies. If this is also partially a way to make people vote for Hillary Clinton, I’m sorry but you’re manipulative a-holes. Can you imagine if at some point, the new Suicide Squad movie that’s coming out in August was propaganda to get people to vote for Donald Trump? It’s just unbelievable! Politics worked in the media before. It’s worked in The Simpsons and Family Guy. The difference between this movie and those two TV shows is that they make fun of everybody and everything. I’m sorry if I seem angry, I just didn’t expect a movie that I had very little hype for could actually be worse than I thought it was going to be. Also, just to let everyone know, I saw Star Trek: Beyond, I might not review it though because I never saw the other Star Trek reboots, Star Trek (2009), and Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013). Not to mention, I just started watching The Original Series, so I probably wouldn’t have as effective of a rating as I probably could. Stay tuned for more reviews, and sorry for rambling but I had to get it out. Scene Before is your click to the flicks!