I thought it was really funny, but no masterpiece. But, then, I don't hold Ghostbusters 2 or the various spinoffs in all that high esteem either. Bill Murray's character or dismissiveness in no way hinged on him being a guy (while his original, brings thorazine on a date character, that spelled out is more of a jab at certain kinds of men), while Kevin... I'm honestly surprised nobody said, "Inga, go to work," to start a dance number. The female version of Kevin is alive and well and currently co-starring as The Girl in how many movies? I thought that was some funny satire, though, yeah, if this was a tv series or something, the joke would get tired quickly.

I don't mean to sound judgmental, because not every movie will make everyone laugh, or even just appeal to everyone, but it seems like you maybe wanted just a retread of the same beats the first movie did? A little? Same kind of comedy, same basic elements? I'm not sure, in the age of DVD, bluray, streaming and reruns that we need that, or that it serves much purpose. I think a moment by moment remake would've been much worse, really. We can see the ghost blowjob or Rick Moranis locked out in the hall gags any time we want. We already know how the Keymaster stuff plays out. Even for the reverent, is there enough reverence that the same jokes, or same plot, same characters and tone would really appeal to enough?

HeadCannon wrote:

Anyway, sorry for being negative or harsh on the movie.

No need to apologize. It is really a subjective thing.

Rob Zombie once implored people to stop saying "so bad it's good," or "I like bad movies," and replace it with, "I like a movie that you don't." Which, is loads more honest and less inherently judgmental, but I don't know that it'll ever really catch on. This is good, this is bad, is a fundamental categorization, whether we can back it up objectively or not.

I think you make a pretty good case with your criteria, that it failed those criteria.

What really fascinates me, is that this movie, which still doesn't seem very important to me, has been such a huge line in the sand, on several fronts (gender-flipping, remakes, certain actresses' bankability). I feel like I'm simultaneously too aware of Ghostbusters as a franchise, and too uninvested in it, to maybe get why this was such a major thing, if that makes sense. I've seen too much of Extreme Ghostbusters and the various toys to feel it's very sacred territory, but at the same time, the proposed scripts for a straight followup movie were even further out there and potentially outside the wheelhouse than what we got. They didn't go into space. There weren't any dragons or squid-monsters. No time travel. All things Aykroyd was pushing for at various points, all things I might have liked to see, but don't really fit neatly in the basic summary of Ghostbusters as a general audience knows it.