REVIEW: “Ghostbusters” remake not good or bad enough to be memorable

The main antagonist of the new “Ghostbusters” remake, Rowan (Neil Casey), is a creepy, awkward weirdo who wants destroy the world because he’s been bullied, belittled and browbeaten his entire life. Word around the campfire is that the movie’s director, Paul Feig, was also bullied and mistreated as a kid.

I was rolling these thoughts around in my head while watching the movie when something clicked. Perhaps Rowan is Feig’s stand-in in his “Ghostbusters” world. Perhaps the reason Feig’s been so belligerent to fans who aren’t pants-wettingly excited about his movie is because he feels that by rejecting his movie, they’re rejecting Rowan and, by extension, himself.

Did this possible subtext help make “Ghostbusters” a good movie? Not really. But it did give me some interesting to think about during the tedious scenes, of which there are many.

“Ghostbusters” is a bad movie. It’s poorly written and chock full of one-dimensional characters that have no chemistry with one another. The movie suffers from a lack of humor, energy and sincerity. And toward the end, it devolves into a fake electronic light show.

”Ghostbusters” knicks its concept and general story from its classic 1984 predecessor. Three scientists, Abby (Melissa McCarthy), Erin (Kristen Wiig) and Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon) join forces with a savvy transit authority worker named Patty (Leslie Jones) to stop the aforementioned Rowan from leveling New York.

Most of the run time of “Ghostbusters” is filled with dull scenes of the leads exchanging facepalm-worthy dialogue. I got the sense that a lot of the dialogue was improvised, which makes me wonder how bad the scripted lines were.

The story also lacked a certain logical consistency. For example, in an early scene, Abby remarks about how heavy the proton packs are. But by the end of the movie, the Ghostbusters are flipping around in slow-motion like something out of “The Matrix”. Wait a minute. Maybe this movie is what The Matrix thinks a “Ghostbusters” movie should look like.

As for the acting, well, it’s pretty unimpressive. Melissa McCarthy plays the same character she plays in every movie she’s in. Kristen Wiig spends most of her screen time looking embarrassed. Kate McKinnon delivers every line she has with a different vocal affectation, to the point where she’s annoying.

On the plus side, Chris Hemsworth is easily the most consistently funny cast member, although it’s hard to believe anyone in existence could be as stupid as his character, Kevin, seems to be. And Leslie Jones has some nice moments when she isn’t bellowing stupid catchphrases. Patty is the only one of these characters I’d ever want to see again.

The action in this movie isn’t anything to write home about. The end battle is twenty minutes of our heroines waving sticks at computer-generated Scooby-Doo villains. Some of the gadgets are cool. I especially liked the ghost shredder, but unfortunately, it made me think of Steve Buscemi in “Fargo”. When something in a movie you’re watching reminds you of better movies, that’s not a good thing.

At the center of this mess is Feig, a guy who has made good stuff before. He created “Freaks and Geeks”, one of the greatest TV shows I’ve ever seen. But his spoofy comedic sensibilities really don’t fit this subject matter. And he doesn’t shoot action very well, which a requirement for a movie about people fighting ghosts.

There are so many other flaws I could bring up, but the absolute worse thing about “Ghostbusters” is that it fails to rise above the rest of the other crummy big-budget movies plugging up our multiplexes. It’s full of the same lame attempts at humor. It concludes with the same world-ending Apocalypse we see every week.

Even the pathetic attempts to tie this movie to the classic “Ghostbusters” fail to make it feel like anything special. In the end, this new “Ghostbusters” is just another bad movie, and it will be forgotten just as quickly as the rest of them.

2 Indy Fedoras our of 5

MPAA Rating: PG-13