Review Roundup - Will GHOSTBUSTERS Save the World? Critics Weigh In on Reboot!

Director Paul Feig's GHOSTBUSTERS highly anticipated reboot of GHOSTBUSTERS is set to hit theaters on Friday, July 15th from Columbia Pictures. Get ready to watch them save the world this summer!

The Ghostbusters movie stars Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Melissa McCarthy and Leslie Jones and features Chris Hemsworth as the new secretary, Andy Garcia as the Mayor of New York City, Michael K. Williams and Matt Walsh as all-new characters and Neil Casey as the film's villain.

Thirty years after the original film took the world by storm, Ghostbusters is back and fully rebooted for a new generation. Director Paul Feig combines all the paranormal fighting elements that made the original franchise so beloved with a cast of new characters, played by the funniest actors working today. Let's see what the critics have to say:

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Part of what makes "Ghostbusters" enjoyable is that it allows women to be as simply and uncomplicatedly funny as men, though it would have been nice if Ms. Jones had been given more to do. (If this were a radical reboot, she would have played a scientist.) In the end, these are Ghostbusters, not Ghostbusting suffragists, even if there's plenty of feminism onscreen and off.

Peter Debruge, Variety: McCarthy is amusing as always, but veers dangerously close to repeating her same old shtick, while Wiig is a poor substitute for Murray's horndog Dr. Peter Venkman, playing a brainiac incapable of maintaining a respectful professional relationship with members of the opposite sex...And yet the one-line idea that made the original such a success - a comedy team fights ghosts - is so rich that surely Feig and co-writer Katie Dippold could have taken the franchise in a totally new direction.

David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter: The high CURIOSITY factor, the stars' popularity and moviegoers' deep affection for the property should generate decent opening numbers for Sony. But despite the teasing hint of a sequel in a post-end-credits coda mention of Zuul, the malevolent demon who possessed Sigourney Weaver in Ivan Reitman's 1984 original, the afterlife this time around looks evanescent.

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: So why does Ghostbusters feel so restrained? For starters, it's too slavish when it nods to the original (although its throw-back cameos are fun), and too flailing and flat when it strays from it (Feig and co-writer Katie Dippold introduce a ghost-unleashing villain, then don't know what to do with him). Even the spectral f/x are oddly shlocky (seeing it in 3-D is pointless aside from one comin'-at-ya slime gag).

Mara Reinstein, US Weekly: The equally uninspired action sequences lead to a special effects-heavy nonsensical apocalyptic climax, which, in all fairness, isn't any more ridiculous than the Stay Puft Marshamallow Man stomping around NYC. But when the quickie visual of a female Slimer riding shotgun in a taxi is the stand out amid the big-budget destructive chaos, clearly something has gone wrong.

Robert Abele, The Wrap: It's understandable that this franchise relaunch would want to remind you of the original, but there's no getting around that this new A-team of ghostbusters are fresh and funny enough to have earned space in the summer comedy firmament. And should it come to further installments, improving on "Ghostbusters II" wouldn't be that hard.

Liz Braun, Toronto Sun:

The idea that an all-female ghost busting team might be a problem is rubbish; the idea that Leslie Jones' casting is racist because she's not a scientist is rubbish; the notion that remaking the movie could only be bad is rubbish. What is true, haters, is that girls really do have sharp teeth all up in there. Sorry

Image courtesy of GHOSTBUSTERS Official Site http://www.ghostbusters.com/gallery/

To post a comment, you must register and login.