User reviews

This reboot of the classic Ghostbusters film tries to be an improvement, but falls short in terms of script and characters. It has a good production, good cinematography, crazy action scenes and dazzling digital effects. The design of the ghosts is amazing and gives them a very cartoonish look. The rest of the movie leaves a lot to be desired. It has a fascinating story with an interesting villain, but it's not fully exploited. The female leads that replace the original cast show some grace, but their characters are not well written. There are moments that, instead of being funny, the characters end up giving pity to others, like much of the comedy in the film. Chris Hemsworth's character is too clumsy and silly. He can make people laugh at times, but unfortunately his character is so goofy that he doesn't make for good comic relief. The script is pretty mediocre and that ends up making the movie far from a good reboot. Even the cameos by the actors from the original movie don't help much. This Ghostbuster movie is sadly a failed reboot and because of that it is the most inferior installment in the entire franchise. My rating for this movie is 6/10.

You have got to be kidding me. This is the movie that has caused so much hatred, rage, and controversy? This harmless, average, fun fluff piece? Pretty much everyone already knew if they liked the film or not before it was even released. I think a lot of people need a reality check not only on this reboot but on the original as well. Hailing the original as some sacramental divine piece of cinema that cannot be improved on is a complete joke. No, I don't hate the original. No, I don't love the reboot. They are both somewhere in between with the original barely edging this out in terms of filmmaking. If we were to rate comedies on their "laughs-per-minute" then the edge would go to this reboot.

But how, when the special effects in the reboot are clearly superior? Turns out that there is far more to film technicalities than bright lights, pretty colors, and realistic green slime. Where Ghostbusters (2016) falters is in the editing and how the humor is set up. The film is too focused on being a ball-busting roller-coaster ride; rarely stopping to catch its breath. There are quite a few legitimately funny bits in here that could have landed even better if the editing was more precise. Silence and patience can work wonders in action comedies. Hell, just look at what Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton were doing literally one hundred years ago.

The cast members are at their best when they aren't forced into doing line-o-rama improv. I found Leslie Jones and Melissa McCarthy to be the shining stars of this with Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon not far behind. McCarthy notably is a groan-inducer to most, but she does well in films that she or her husband did not write or direct (Spy, St. Vincent, and now this). Jones acts as the grounded everywoman who keeps the nutty ghost hunters in line, and for my money has the best comedic timing out of the four. McKinnon seems to have downed a few energy drinks before every shoot as she is incredibly extra in every scene, often more so than required. Wiig tries to bring an emotional backstory to the picture but it gets lost in all of the neon rainbow effects.

If you're one of the few somehow still on the fence about this: give it a try. It won't ruin your childhood, or kick your dog, or kill your family. At worst you'll walk away unamused and then proceed to pop in the original.

There was no need to make this. It was diabolical in many ways and after just viewing the trailer for Afterlife this pops back up with a 6.6 star rating. How?! Ghostbusters 2 has a 6.6 rating. You're telling me that people think this crap is equally good?! No! The only good thing about this disaster was one particular scene in 3D. Hopefully Afterlife will be far better.

This is an average to marginally above average movie. Melissa McCarthy is hit or miss for me, but she does well here. Kristen Wiig is always good, McKinnon and Jones both shine and Chris Hemsworth delivers as well. Everyone makes the best of the given material, which is not always great. The banter is good, but the characters can be one-note. Hemsworth is dumb, we get it. He has a few really funny lines, but "dumb" is his entire character. Jones has the same one-note problem. McKinnon was my favorite, she brought a sort of Bill Murray quality of not taking the plot seriously. Overall I LOVE that they had an all female cast for a summer action-comedy and I think they got the right actresses for it. However, the overall plot left something to be desired. I would have liked them to explore the main villain a bit more. I get that the joke is that he's a whiny, entitled guy but it would have liked to see him really overreact to rejection. They also don't really bust a lot of ghosts in this movie. They catch maybe one before the climax.

So like I said, the acting and line-to-line dialogue was good but the overall writing doesn't really stick. It's entertaining. Don't listen to the original Ghostbusters fanboys who dedicated their time to destroying this movies IMDb rating.

Haters gonna hate. Ignore them.

It is a fun silly summer movie. The slapstick is better than average and all the kids in the theater were shouting and having a great time.

In the year of the reboot and redo, this is a great little movie with well placed homages, cameos, and inside jokes. The ending credits were worth staying for too!

All the actors did solid work and there was good chemistry among the main characters. I especially liked Leslie Jones throughout the movie. She does genius work, pun intended.

Looking forward to a sequel.

How do you go from being involved in Freaks and Geeks, The Office, Weeds and Arrested Development to this?! Paul Feig has just lost every ounce of talent he once had. It's really sad because I love all those shows.

He has a talented cast to work with. I like both Wiig and McCarthy and MacKinnon has made me laugh several times on SNL. Hemsworth is also a good actor, as are several of the the supporting cast. The script however is just mind-bogglingly bad. It would have been rejected in a grade school drama class. If you add the fact that Feig's direction seems to consist of telling his cast to improvise, and whether the improvs are funny or not (mostly not) keeping them in the movie you have the recipe for a really bad film.

There's really no story, no characters to care about and the parts that are supposed to be funny fall flat. It's a waste of money, talent and a franchise that could have been resurrected and profitable, had it been done right.

6.8?!?! How is this rated higher than the 1989 sequel?!?

This movie was awful. Like, really bad. I'm a huge Ghostbusters fan, but this was not it. Such a pointless movie to make, terribly acted and I'm pretty sure the rating was rigged somehow. Either that, or people have terrible taste in movies. The other three movies in the franchise were great, but this was horrible. Only thing remotely enjoyable (if I had to choose SOMETHING) was the cameo appearances by some of the original cast. Other than that... ummm... hmmm... cure for insomnia.

And that's it. Don't waste you time. Watch anything else.....

Three scientists (Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, and Kate McKinnon) and a subway worker (Leslie Jones) form Ghostbusters, a team dedicated to ridding the world of unwanted spooks. The foursome have their work cut out for them when weirdo janitor Rowan North (Neil Casey) puts into motion his plan to unleash malevolent spirits on New York.

I'm not a huge fan of the original Ghostbusters, so I wasn't at all outraged when they announced the remake/reboot, with—God forbid—a female cast. Despite the trailer not boding well, and terrible word of mouth on the film's release, I was willing to go in with an open mind. However, I'm sorry to say that the film is every bit the total (ghost)train wreck that I had heard it was, well deserving of all the hatred and scorn thrown its way.

A terrible script loaded with extremely lame gags, four leads who share zero chemistry and who are not in the least bit funny (but very irritating), an extremely embarrassing supporting role for Chris Hemsworth (as dumb hunk receptionist Kevin), pointless cameos from stars of the original Ghostbusters (all of whom should have said 'No!'), and waayyyy too much CGI: Ghostbusters 2016 didn't have a ghost of a chance of succeeding.

I went to see this film with a complete open mind and i left the cinema pleased with what i had watched. I also went to see it for the originals making an appearance - which was amazing!

The four main leads all did a good job, some of which wasn't their strongest performance but was still good acting. The two stands out were clearly Chris Hemsworth and Kate McKinnon, they stole the show.

With this being a reboot all four leads were always going to be compared to the phenomenal cast of the original and in a way they should be as they try to clearly take certain personality aspects from their counterparts.

The USER reviews this film has received, some of it has it's merit and can be justified but a lot of the hate is simply because it has four female leads which is very disturbing for this day and age.

That aide i would highly recommend seeing this film, weather you're a fan of the originals or not. This film is a must watch and a highly enjoyable one at that.

I don't know, even after many years this one is still controversial. I think it's cooled down a lot with another "Ghostbusters" film being released since this one. The original 1984 movie is kind of a "lightning-in-a-bottle" type deal. The sequel with the original cast altogether wasn't that great. The "Force Awakens" style Hollywood nostalgia money grab wasn't pretty mediocre. This remake is awful. You can make a movie like "Ghostbusters" or "Back to the Future" that just has a very original plot and concept, and no matter how badly you want the dollars that came with it, it's always gonna be a hollow attempt.

Man, this one is very bad though. Like almost insufferably obnoxious and stupid. It's disappointing because I honestly have nothing bad to say about any of the people who worked on the film. I liked a lot of the cast members in other projects like "Saturday Night Live" and "The Office." Chris Hemsworth is really funny, but they didn't even try to give us any chemistry between him and Kristin Wiig like they were teasing throughout the whole film. Not even anything like a funny joke. Just short little jokes about how sexy she thought he was or something.

The story is more or less a retread of the original's plot points, but I can at least give them the complement that it's a different one? Like at least not a beat-for-beat remake? Kristin Wiig's character is the only Ghostbuster that I liked, all three of the other ones really got on my nerves and the actresses all seemed like they were trying way too hard to just force jokes that didn't come naturally. I was laughing at some points, but at most of the others they just fell completely flat on their face.

Really terrible special effects and awful jokes mixed with extremely obnoxious forced attempts at poop and queef humor (yes there was a terrible queef joke in this that obviously went over like a wet fart) made this one incredibly hard to watch. And for that reason I would only recommend this movie to those with a very high level of curiosity or if you're a "Ghostbusters" fanatic, which I guess by this point most of them have already made up their minds on the 2016 version. It gets relegated to a footnote in movie history, like "hey remember back in 2016 when they tried to remake 'Ghostbusters' with an all-female cast?" That's really all there is to it.

This movie was made to entertain, period. It is not a movie that will make you question life and all of its' mysteries, but it will make you laugh. If you want to shut your mind off for a couple of hours, enjoy. If, however, you can't find humor in what isn't cerebral, buy a book. Preferably a textbook.

What's to say? At this point the movie is so mired in controversy that any opinion on it seems like a political statement more than a movie review. But here we go anyway - I didn't like it. It feels less like a movie with an idea (in this case a recycled one) and more like one of the many subpar comedies we have today where a few comedians who are friends in real life get together and give us two hours of smug back-patting. It offers nothing memorable of its own, just a few reworked things from the original movie, which was a classic with many iconic images and scenes. The only thing anyone will remember about this is the controversy surrounding it. I don't care much for Melissa McCarthy or Leslie Jones but I do like Kristen Wiig and I'm trying very hard to like Kate McKinnon (perhaps too hard). None of these women are impressive here. Chris Hemsworth's character is used too much. It's an obvious joke that doesn't get funnier the more you tell it. Ultimately the problem with this movie isn't that "women aren't funny," so much as comedy writers today are very lazy and uninspired.

Ghostbusters (2016)

1/2 (out of 4)

Wow, what on Earth were they thinking? I will freely admit that I love to see films remade. I mean, it gives the original some attention and in the best cases you end up with another good movie. In the worse cases, hey, you've still got the original film there. If anything this 2016 remake of GHOSTBUSTERS just makes the original all the more impressive because it's amazing how bad this thing is. And no, I'm not sexist or racist. I'm just being honest. I was okay with this film being made but it's really shocking how awful it turned out.

I'm not even sure where to begin in regards to the bad stuff. I guess we can start with the story because there really isn't a story. There's pretty much a bunch of stuff ripped off from the original movies and toned down here. The horror elements are all toned down. The sexism is toned down. There's really no "story" here outside of four women trying to capture ghosts. I kept watching this expecting something to happen but it just never did. Even worse is the fact that the film didn't make me laugh a single time, which gets us to another problem.

The four female leads here are just downright awful. I'm not going to put an awful lot of blame on them since I'm sure they'll all talented actresses but the screenplay pretty much gave them no characters. In the case of Melissa McCarthy, she's pretty much playing the same type of annoying character that she plays in all of her movies. Kristen Wiig was downright annoying, Leslie Jones was even more annoying and Kate McKinnon didn't even register on the screen.

Even the ghosts are downright pathetic and lazy. I use the word lazy because there's just nothing creative about them and once again it just goes to show how wonderful the original film was and they even make the stuff in the sequel seem better. I could go on and on about the awful stuff in this movie. I honestly had no idea the movie would turn out as bad as it did and it really makes you wonder why Bill Murray would refuse to do a sequel for so many years yet he'd sign up for this thing? I'm hoping he and the other cameos were paid quite well.

GHOSTBUSTERS is a film that could have worked and should have worked. I'm really dumbfounded as to what went so horribly wrong with this but just changing the sexes of a character certainly isn't enough to make a film work.

I've been wanting to see this movie for quite some time. As many has stated before, the old movies are classic and that's what they should be. I went in with expectations that this new one was going to be a remake, but got surprised that it mostly wasn't. Sure, you had the classical lead - this time all female - with the obligatory dark-skinned actor, but to me it didn't matter. The four characters were all shaped in a unique way which in turned just added to the interactions. Not to mention their funny secretary (who doesn't love an attractive, but slightly dumb guy?). The ghosts were nicely shaped and you got to see a bit of nostalgia from the classical movies.

I didn't laugh all the time, but most of it. It's a perfect film when you can't care to think too much about plots and just want a ride for the evening. I'm saying bravo for making a pretty good remake!

Contrary to the original, 2016's Ghostbusters is broad and lowbrow with pratfalls, bodily-function gags and buffoons mugging for the camera. Broad and lowbrow doesn't necessarily mean bad - even Blazing Saddles had the bean scene. What sets GB 2016 apart is its pervasive sense of desperation. The people making this movie clearly realized their loud, dumb, goofy approach wasn't working; and like a flailing stand-up comedian their only recourse was to become louder, dumber and goofier in the hopes of garnering a few pity chuckles. It's not just unfunny, it's downright uncomfortable and cringe-inducing.

The Ghostbusters reboot was exactly the kind of lighthearted fun I want in a summer flick. I really enjoyed it and have seen a number of posts on Facebook from friends both male and female who saw it and really liked it, too. There were so many laugh out loud funny moments. The "meta" moments were really fun, too, such as the nods to the original Ghostbusters and some of the jabs taken at, shall we say, the haters. I want to watch the original again so I can re-watch the reboot and see what I might have missed the first time around. I also particularly enjoyed Kate McKinnon and her deadpan deliveries. The closing credits were also a lot of fun. Make sure you stick around for the added scene that comes after the credits!

When news of a Ghostbusters movie hit in 2014 I was buzzing for it, finally a ghostbusters movie, finally a conclusion to GB 1 and 2 and a continuation with the old gang passing the torch to the new recruits. Oh how I was wrong, instead what we got was a slap in the face to the fandom, slap in the face to the mythology and a slap in the face to the movies that came before it. What was show was a complete reversal of what was expected and wanted which got rectified with the awesome and true sequel Ghostbusters Afterlife.

The fact that it had women has nothing to do with how bad this movie is....its just plain and simply a bad movie and rubbish storyline.

This movie deservedly thrown in the same category as Batman & Robin 1997 which nearly crippled a loved franchise, same can be said with this, the hate is justified.