A movie review: By Lee Sonogan

1h56mins/Action, Comedy, Fantasy

The reboot of the Ghostbusters franchise. With a budget of 144 million, it was able to make 228.1 million in the box office, despite many people giving it very low reviews. The movie is described as after a ghost invasion of Manhattan, paranormal enthusiasts Erin Gilbert and Abby Yates, nuclear engineer Jillian Holtzmann, and subway worker Patty Tolan join together to stop a deadly threat.

The four main cast members all joined the movie because they themselves were fans of the original movie. These actresses are Kristen Wigg, Mellisa McCarthy, Leslie Jones and Kate Mckinnon. A number of actors from the original movie appear in this one – Bill Murray (Peter Venkman), Dan Aykroyd (Raymond Stantz), Sigourney Weaver (Dana Barrett), Annie Potts (Janine Melnitz) and Ernie Hudson (Winston Zeddmore). Bill Murray’s character Martin Heiss is a sceptic and debunker of paranormal activity. His character of Dr Peter Venkman was a scientific charlatan who also did not believe in ghosts until he saw one personally. By contrast, all of the new Ghostbusters consider themselves serious scientists who believe in paranormal phenomena.

During the 1990s, Dan Aykroyd’s concept for a third Ghostbusters film revolved around the Ghostbusters travelling to an alternate, hellish version of New York City. Columbia Pictures baulked at the proposed $150m budget. Ultimately, Ghostbusters (2016) ended up with a $144m budget, although inflation means it costs less than Aykroyd’s proposed sequel.

Some errors in the movie include:

• Throughout the movie, the shadow of the sound mike is seen above the actor’s heads, in the background.
• As the trio celebrate their first supernatural encounter outside the haunted mansion, Erin (coated in slime) hugs Abby and slime sticks to Abby’s clothes. In the next shot as they continue hopping up and down, there is no slime on Abby.
• Just prior to being slimed by the ghost librarian, one of the Ghostbusters is seen eating potato chips. Whilst the sliming occurs, the chips vanish. After the sliming, the chips return.
• Someone at the rock concert is filming the ghost with their smartphone, but the screen on the phone is the home screen instead of the scene that they would be filming.
• Plus many more.

In conclusion,  as of July 2016, this film holds the title for ‘most disliked’ trailer ever on YouTube and with that title, it is hard to like this film.  Plus Chris Hemsworth plays his worst character on film in this movie. At least the movies I have seen of him. The film is full of mild jokes, conflicts and dull scenes. This film deserves the low rating that I am going to give it and I do not recommend this movie to anyone. It does not live up to the former movies in the franchise and the cameo appearances from the former characters are very short and not interesting. This reboot did not work well and the only thing I can say that’s good about it is after all the scenes that are hard to watch is, the last half an hour of the movie gets somewhat interesting. Definitely where most of the budget went.

5.4/10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1289401/