Anghus Houvouras on the Ghostbusters reboot…
I have only one requirement of a comedy: It must make me laugh. A chuckle is fine. A smile or a grin is appreciated. A knee slap is great. However if you promise me a comedy, at some point i’m going to have to laugh. The Jackass movies are childish larks of grown men performing ridiculous stunts and abuse to themselves, but when those guys jump into a shopping cart and crash into a garbage dumpster, I’m laughing. Or when i’m watching Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon doing their Michael Caine impressions over a nice meal, I’m laughing. Or when the Kristen Wiig and the cast of Bridesmaids are dealing with a bout of food poisoning and desperate to find a private place to void their bowels, I’m laughing. Not all comedies work and humor is very much a subjective experience. Sometimes the intended humor just doesn’t translate, or the comedic concept is faulty, or the cast isn’t up to snuff. The new Ghostbusters had none of these handicaps and yet it might be the unfunniest movie I’ve seen in years. The goal here isn’t to nitpick but to make a real examination as to why this film just wasn’t funny.
I’m not one of these people who holds the original Ghostbusters in such high regard that I view a reboot as some kind of cinematic heresy. I like the original film. It’s one of those classic movies that manages to milk a lot of comedy out of an outrageous concept. What makes it work so well is how the kooky idea of four schlubs starting a ghostbusting business seems in a New York City populated with naysayers, bureaucrats, and stuffed shirts. The Ghostbusters were funny but most of the characters who populated their fictional world were not. You could argue that Louis Tully (Rick Moranis) was doing a lot of scenery chewing as he played the nebbish accountant who ends up possessed by a demon. But for the most part, it was a fairly restrained affair.
Director Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters is anything but restrained. And for that reason It’s something of a disaster. A movie that is packed with talent in front of the camera and a proven popular comedic concept and they end up driving it into the ground with the subtlty of a nuclear powered jackhammer. The film’s biggest problem is it’s take on the material. Rather than have the Ghostbusters be amusing protagonists and the world around them be more serious, they decide that every character has to be funny. Wait. Let me rephrase that. Every character tries to be funny and it rarely works. I was aghast as I watched scene after scene where every single character with a line tries to make jokes. It was like watching a really bad improv class doing a Ghostbusters theme night.
Let me give you an example. The opening scene features a historic New York City home where visitors are given a tour by a geeky tour guide (Silicon Valley’s Zach Woods). As he goes to each room he describes the surroundings and ends each piece with a joke. For example, he walks past one room and says “This is where PT Barnum first came up with the idea of enslaving Elephants”. It immediately tells you everything you need to know about this reboot of the comedy classic: Every character is going to be making jokes. Painfully unfunny jokes. The same shtick occurs later on in the movie when the Ghostbusters assemble to try and catch a ghost at a rock concert. They enter the building and are greeted by an uptight, stuffy venue manager who implores them to help him, and then tells them that when he’s frightened he has a girlish screech. Every character is doing a bit to the point of rabid incredulity. The Chinese Food Delivery Guy has a bit. The Receptionist has a bit. The Mayor has a bit. The Mayor’s assistant has a bit. The Dean of the College has a bit. Every god damned character in this movie has a bit, and none of it is funny.
The four main characters do their best to try and bring some credibility to this comedic exercise but the fast and loose improv feel of every scene never allows them to develop any characters. Kristen Wiig tries her best to anchor the crew with a shred of seriousness, but it’s undone by Melissa McCarthy’s bombast, Kate McKinnon’s cringe inducing mugging, and Leslie Jones’ screaming. These are talented performances in an improvisational exercise that never manages to achieve any altitude. The whole thing blows up during take off and spends the rest of it’s running time flaming the fire of failure.
It’s so rare when you can identify a film’s one major failing point or reduce it down to a single conceit. Identifying what doesn’t work about Ghostbusters is way too easy: everybody tries too hard to be funny. Judd Apatow and Feig have ushered in this unscripted style where funny people get together and improvise scenes doing riff and riff and then putting together the working gags in post production. Sometimes it works. Sometimes you end up with an hour and 47 minutes of hot garbage. Ghostbusters is supernaturally unfunny.
Anghus Houvouras
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https://youtu.be/b7Ozs5mj5ao?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
Originally published July 22, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
