I’ll go
ahead and get this out of the way too, the idea to reboot this franchise but
with a female cast is actually excellent and compared to the final casting some
of the purposed names were brilliant like Linda Cardellini (from Regular Show,
Gravity Falls & the live action Scooby Doo) and Emma Stone (Zombieland,
Birdman & The Amazing Spiderman). And I’ll go out on a limb and say those
additions would’ve been better fits for the franchise than what was assembled
for this film.
Before I
can speak on the final cast it’s better to start at the top that being the
producers, the writers and directors. The producers are Amy Pascal and Ivan Reitman;
the names might not mean much to you or any regular viewer but this is the
start of the 50/50 concept. Reitman an established Hollywood producer for
comedy films who was a part of the original Ghostbusters film team and also
assisted in the 1989 sequel. This bodes well for fans of the series so far and
were afraid this would amount to nothing but a quick nostalgia-played cash grab by the studios. Amy Pascal on the
other hand represents just that a behind the curtains executive at the company
who over-saw the production of films like post-Brosnan James Bond films and The Smurfs live action film.
Even with that to her credit she’s primarily known for her part in the Sony
Email Hack’s where she implied racially insensitive comments about how
she wonders if President Obama is a fan of Django Unchained or Steve Harvey’s
Think Like a Man. At this point it’s fair to say the film has a shot at being
successful and is now time to move onto the writers.
This is
where the scale begins to tip unfavorably to the negative side. Paul Feig was
assigned as the primary writer and also director of the film and in all
fairness this was probably a poor choice. Yes, he delivers box-office hits from
his resume such as “Bridesmaids” and more recently “The Heat”. The second
writer of the film is Katie Dippold, who was also a screen writer for “The
Heat” with Feig but the writing of this film shows another side of her writing
credits from the dark years of MADtv in the mid-late 2000’s. This is combo of
writers is clearly there to make this your standard comedy film but with this
approach it’s already lost the soul of what the Ghostbusters was a good mix of
“my god that’s terrifying” moments but can naturally put in subtle comedic
lines.
An ideal fit to be writers and directors of this would’ve been Phil Lord
& Christopher Miller who had already had success reviving a franchise from
the 80’s in 21 Jump Street and universal acclaim with The Lego Movie and Cloudy
with a Chance of Meatballs. That duo would understand how to breathe a modern
breath of air into this series while staying true to the original films. If
you’ve already seen the trailer above, you noticed the demonic possession
attempt they have written in the film and now view this clip from the original
1984 film and how they mastered the balance of humor and fear.
Feig’s
live action films post-2010 tend to follow a pretty generic formula that puts
Melissa McCarthy in comedic situations to do what she does best. Anyone seeing
how the film has been developed up to the casting point can see this is headed
in the same direction of Melissa taking center stage once again. The supporting cast
members include Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon all Saturday Night
Live alumni. Take into consideration they added a writer from MADtv in its
dying years and it now makes perfect sense why many would compare that trailer
to a poorly written SNL sketch. This shows little effort in wanting to put
together a group that could hold a candle next to the Bill Murray and Harold
Ramis original cast. If you were expecting a real Ghostbusters film instead of
this Ghostbusters like parody this trailer serves to be a reminder of the disappointment that
you will feel if you were to go out, pay for and watch this movie.
Written by: Stephen Fowler
