It had me at the mention of face bidets. Giggles at the get go at GHOSTBUSTERS, the all female retread or reboot or re-gendered of the hit 1984 box office gross-buster.
Melissa McCarthy and Bill Murray should star in more movies together.
GHOSTBUSTERS is the best thing the actress has done since teaming up with Muzza in St. Vincent.
Here she plays Abby, an expert in the paranormal who has devoted her life to the study of ectoplasmic entities. Years earlier, she had co-authored a book about the paranormal with her high school buddy, Erin, now a physicist trying for tenure at a major university.The ghost of her past catches up with her thanks to Abby’s posting of their volume on the internet which spooks the institution and spirits away her chances of a secure position.
Jobless, she is coerced to join Abby and her engineer business partner, Holtzman, in a ghost-busting enterprise. The three scientists are joined by Patty, an ex New York City Transit employee who knows the town like the back of her hand and has had some spectral encounters of her own.
Setting up on top of an old Chinese restaurant, they hire a dumb blonde receptionist called Kevin, and acquire transportation via Patty’s funeral director uncle.
Under the direction of Paul Feig, GHOSTBUSTERS could have been a gross bust, but he and co-screenwriter Katie Dippold have gone for the kooky and eccentric, a reverent irreverence that works for it rather than against it.
Kristen Wiig as the sceptic errant Erin who sees the error of her ways and reclaims her belief in the uncanny is terrific.
Kate McKinnon is quite a revelation as Holtzman, a nutty professor who channels Jerry Lewis through Judy Holiday.
A Born Yesterday reference continues through with the portrayal of Chris Hemsworth as Kevin, reminiscent in spectacle and cardigan couture of William Holden in that George Cukor classic.
There’s an interesting role reversal here in that Erin is quite happy to hire the incompetent for his looks alone and then makes inappropriate advances and remarks to him.
There’s fun to be had from ticking off the cameos from the original cast, Bill Murray, in particular, as a famous sceptic who has a penchant for his mother’s hats.
Sure the story is skeletal and like most popcorn pictures of the present the CGI is overdone, but GHOSTBUSTERS kooky spooky textures – cast, tone, and design – conjures more than a ghost of a smile.
