Hindsight: A 2016 Cinematic Retrospective

It turns out that in 2016 I saw even more Hollywood films than I did in 2015. Bugger. As is the norm, let's start with my totally fair assessments of films I didn't see.

Eleven Films You Might Have Expected Me To See But I Didn't:

10 Cloverfield Lane

I actually quite liked the original Cloverfield for whatever reason and I've heard this is quite decent. I'm curious. Update: I've seen this now. It's tense and engaging, although the ending's a bit daft. I'd probably recommend it.

Assassin's Creed

I've played the first four games to completion, and the next two a bit, but everyone knew this was going to suck. The thing is, I feel like this could have been good in different circumstances. Maybe it actually is good; I haven't seen it. It's not, though, is it? Poor old Fassbender.

Batman: The Killing Joke

This overrated comic didn't deserve the hype of being adapted into a cartoon, much less one in which they had to make up new material to give it an adequate runtime. I simply don't care.

Blair Witch

I'm not a huge fan of the original Blair Witch film, but it does have some good creepy elements to this day and I feel like I'll probably watch this followup at some point.

Dad's Army

The idea of turning yet another twentieth-century TV series into a modern feature film is fairly repugnant to me, and while I've seen a reasonable amount of the show, I wasn't very interested in seeing a bunch of modern actors pretending to recreate it.

Don't Breathe

I heard this was pretty good. I just haven't seen it. I want to.

Update in 2019: I've seen this now. It was decent, although arguably the "person who can't see but has super-other-senses" gimmick is somewhat played out; it's like what would happen if a bunch of kids robbed an elderly homicidal Daredevil. The bait-and-switches with the law-focused kid seemingly getting killed are a bit silly too, but the whole film is fairly absurd. Unfortunately I saw a review a couple of years ago which spoiled the revelations (I never really expected to watch this at the time) and I remembered them, so a bit of shock value was lost. I enjoyed it for the really disturbing plot and the sense of tension, but the constant false endings grew a bit tiresome after a while. I watched this on the same night as 2018's A Quiet Place and I must admit that this was the "film in which people can't speak" feature I enjoyed more.

Hacksaw Ridge

I only heard this even existed when Oscars time came around. I'm curious, if only because I've heard it's set during the war and is horror-movie-violent. I might look into it at some point.

La La Land

I also only heard that this even existed around Oscar time. Apparently it's good. How come Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone co-star in so many films? I want to see this.

Underworld: Blood Wars

I like the Underworld films for much the same reason as the Resident Evil films (see below). I don't have much patience for trash, but action horror trash I have a little time for. I'll probably see this at some point.

Warcraft

Nah.

X-Men: Apocalypse

I only watched Days of Future Past last year and enjoyed it more than I expected. I've heard this isn't as good, but I'm sure I'll get around to it at some point. Update: I've seen this now. It's not particularly worthwhile apart from the Wolverine cameo and the fact that Apocalypse was actually Oscar Isaac in a costume and not a motion capture CGI character. It actually feels very retro in this regard, like a film from fifteen years earlier.

Now here's a new category!

Nine Films I Didn't See and You Might Not Have Expected Me to See Anyway, but Feel Like Mentioning or Taking the Piss Out Of:

Ben-Hur

What Hollywood genius thought it would be a good idea to remake an old film (yeah, I know it was originally a novel) that old people would consider sacrosanct and young people wouldn't know of or care about?

The BFG

I know this is a kids' film and I'm not the target market, but this was one of those things where when I saw posters I thought "Since when were they making another Roald Dahl film? Well, that marketing campaign missed the bus."

Finding Dory

I actually saw the end credits for this after I went into the cinema early before another film. I've never seen Finding Nemo, so as much as I love some other Pixar properties (Toy Story and The Incredibles), I couldn't give a shit about this.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

I've heard that this is good. I wouldn't mind seeing it.
Update: I've seen this now too. It is good. Lots of New Zealand style humour, an inevitable appearance by Rhys Darby, and some very good cinematography capturing the famous landscape. Worth a watch.

The Jungle Book

Still adapting Kipling, are we? I kind of want to argue that he's an extremely outdated relic of nineteenth century imperialism, but Arthur Conan Doyle is too and I love Sherlock Holmes, so I suppose I should shut my mouth.

Lion

I saw the trailer for this a couple of times. Heartwarming I'm sure, but didn't look like my cup of tea at all.

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children

I know it's based on a novel, but to me it just looked like a cross between X-Men and Narnia. Maybe it's worth it for Eva Green. I've long felt that Tim Burton is a master of concept and incapable of satisfying execution, and I daresay this is more of the same.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows

Apparently this adapted elements from the much-loved 80s cartoon show, which is kinda cool, but I don't actually really care about the 80s cartoon show, so it'd be wasted on me.

Whisky Tango Foxtrot

Having binge-watched all of 30 Rock last year I sort of imagined that I'd end up seeing this because of my Tina-Fey-loving friends, but I didn't. Apparently it isn't very good. I daresay I'll see it in a bargain bin some day soon.

This leaves us with...

Fifteen 2016 Films I actually saw:

Allied

When I saw this I had no idea what it was going to be about or who directed it going in. Then it became a somewhat simplistic espionage and romance drama set against World War II, and when the mediocrity was over and the words "Directed by Robert Zemeckis" appeared on the screen, I went "ah". I'm pretty sure Zemeckis hasn't done anything of real value since Forrest Gump, and while this film was kind of interesting, in that a man played by Brad Pitt discovers that his wife, played by Marion Cotillard, might be a deep-cover Nazi agent, the first half of the film, which is set in Casablanca and involves actual spying, is far more interesting and atmospheric than the second, which is set in England and mostly involved Brad Pitt feeling sad that his wife might be a spy. The cliché ending, in which Cotillard's character shoots herself, despite being a victim of blackmail, to save her husband's reputation, felt like the film casting about for something interesting to end on, not being able to think of anything, shrugging its shoulders and saying "tragic suicide it is, then." Competent, but far from essential.

Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders

This is an animated film, reuniting several cast members of the classic 1960s Batman television show voicing themselves in animated form, with Adam West, Burt Ward and Julie Newmar reprising their roles as Batman, Robin and Catwoman respectively. It's a little over-long and I think it could have been divided into two "episodes" like the TV show upon which it's based, but it's very charming and captures the feeling of the old show well while simultaneously poking a bit of fun at its more ridiculous elements. West, Ward and Newmar all sound pretty much right after all these years and the absurd storyline has enough changes of focus to prevent things from becoming too dull, with plenty of humour about the ridiculous villain schemes, hideouts and traps, as well as Batman and Robin's personalities, making it enjoyable to watch. It's a bit of fun.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
See my full review of this here and listen to this podcast for views highly comparable to mine. The first of my "Better Than I Expected" films of 2016, this is a bad film, but I liked it enough to buy the blu-ray release of the extended edition, which adds essentially nothing to the film. It's unnecessarily dark and dour with an overcomplicated story, some tiresome CGI and an extremely inept effort to introduce the other Justice League characters, but for me at least it was largely carried by Ben Affleck's portrayal of Batman, which I personally found rather engaging. However, as with Man of Steel, it doesn't do anything very new or interesting with Superman, which largely makes me wish this had just been a Batman film. This isn't a good piece of cinema by any means, and I fully understand the opinions of those who hated it. I just liked Batman, and, if I'm going to be honest, the fight between him and Superman was weirdly cathartic.

The Beatles: Eight Days A Week

This documentary on the Beatles' touring years was, in my opinion, a very interesting insight into the lives led by the Fab Four during their most frantic period of performance activity, from '62 to '66, when they were travelling the world, struggling to hear their own instruments over the voices of screaming teenagers, and being placed under constant scrutiny by a still very skeptical media. The large use of archive footage is extremely effective in providing as close as possible a view of what the time was like, and interview material, both new for the survivors and archival, with the Beatles themselves, is invaluable in enhancing this. Probably my only criticism would be that some of the other "talking heads" in the film, like Richard Curtis, seem pointless and trite. The appending of footage from the '66 Shea Stadium concert was also a very intriguing view of what an actual Beatles concert was like by the end of the period: by the looks of things, rushed, slightly on edge and rather safe in terms of set list. Perhaps it's absurd to suggest that the Beatles, with all their enormous success, had a bad time, but it's still a worthwhile depiction of artists at risk of being trapped by their own fame, and how they avoided it.

Captain America: Civil War

It'd be remiss of me to argue that this isn't as relentlessly adequate as any Marvel film, and it features some reasonably entertaining stuff involving Ant-Man and the new Spider-Man. You can read my extensive review of it here. The thing that bothers me the most about this film is that it's really an Avengers film, or even an Iron Man film, rather than being a Captain America film, as while his actions somewhat drive the plot it's fundamentally more about Iron Man and the Avengers than it is about him. The problem I really have with both Russo brothers Cap films is that they're basically just thrillers that happen to feature Captain America, and as a fan of the character I find that personally frustrating.

The Conjuring 2

I was a big fan of the first Conjuring film, and while this sequel is pretty much more of the same, it lacks the impact of the first one. I think I also struggled with it a bit because I knew a bit more about the Enfield Poltergeist hoax going in, so it was more difficult for me to handle how obviously and wildly divergent the film's narrative is from anything that happened in reality. It's entertaining and horror newbies might find it scary, but it relies more on startles and creating a feeling of helplessness than any strong horror theme. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are both still very watchable as the Warrens but I feel like James Wan's horror stylings are possibly getting a little played out by this point. Nonetheless I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the first film.

Deadpool

Everyone sure loved this film, didn't they? It's okay. My sentiments are the same as those of some other reviews I saw at the time. It's watchable, but the plot is a bit too safe for my liking, as it ultimately comes down to Deadpool trying to save his girlfriend. If this had been subverted a bit I would have appreciated it, but it isn't really. Ryan Reynolds is of course fine as the lead; I'm not a huge Deadpool fan, so I can't say whether this was a satisfactory representation of the character or not. My favourite elements were the use of X-Men characters, in this case Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, which added an element of comic-book camp into the film that was necessary and, in fact, far more engaging than the serious way the X-Men are usually portrayed in their own films. I also enjoyed "Deadpool's" (Reynolds') enthusiastic admission at the end of the film that the sequel would feature Cable. Despite being an unconventional superhero film, with its "mature" elements and self-referentiality, this in many respects felt like a film that was more comfortable actually being a comic book movie than many which have been made over the last fifteen years or so, and I at least respect it for that.

Doctor Strange

Speaking of comfort, Doctor Strange was a film I recently saw which I think more or less showed just how well-worn and comfortable the Marvel Studios formula has become. I wish Benedict Cumberbatch didn't have to put on the American accent, but I got used to it after a while, and the supporting cast of various wizards is all decent, the highlight being of course Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One. On the other hand, Rachel McAdams doesn't really need to be in the film and seems largely to exist so Strange can have a sort-of love interest, and Mads Mikkelsen's Kaecilius could have been more interesting than he ends up being; he's somewhat let down, in a film full of interesting locations and curious outfits, by his rather dull design: just a tunic and some purple eye shadow. I also felt that some of the "reality altering" effects seemed pointless. For instance, I'm not sure what purpose all the "running on opposite sides of a catwalk" stuff achieved in the battle sequence in the mirror dimension. As others have pointed out, Strange defeating Dormammu with trickery rather than force was a nice variation on things. Yes, this was ultimately a pretty safe film for such an unusual character, but I think it maybe did just enough differently to get away with it. I only hope the presumed sequel in which Strange fights Mordo takes this a bit further.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

I actually enjoyed this film. The screenplay was by JK Rowling herself, and I think it shows, as the quite distinct main plots and their interconnectedness or possible lack thereof potentially evoke a novel's story rather than a conventional cinematic narrative. The excessive use of CGI for the monsters is of course a problem, and with less engaging characters it would have been dull; Kowalski particularly was well implemented. My biggest problem with the film was having the opponent revealed to be Grindelwald himself rather than just being one of his servants or someone who supported his ideals, as I felt like this compressed the size of the world a lot and made Grindelwald, who is meant to be second only to Voldemort in terms of threat, seem far less dangerous than he should have been. Hopefully the sequel explains why he let himself be so easily captured. Also, Johnny Depp? Really? Anyway, I still found this entertaining and would put it as another of my "Better Than I Expected" films of 2016.

Ghostbusters (2016)

The third "Better Than I Expected" film of 2016, I've already reviewed this here. Putting the idiotic controversy around it aside, I think this film works best when not even viewed as a follow up to or reboot of the original films, because the style of humour is completely different. Personally I found it reasonably funny and liked the cast. Of course, it's got nothing on the original, but in my opinion few American comedy films do (maybe Airplane?). The biggest problem with the film is all the scummery that Sony engaged in behind the scenes, such as threatening to sue Bill Murray if he didn't cameo in it. On the surface I think it was made with a reasonable amount of sincerity. Not much more to say about this one; you either like it or you don't.

Hail, Caesar!
The Coen Brothers at their Coen-Brotheriest, this affectionate tribute to/spoof of the 1950s film industry to me was more "mildly amusing" than particularly entertaining. Nonetheless, Josh Brolin has an interesting role as a studio enforcer, the metatextual sequences are funny and evocative, and the representation of Cold War anti-communist paranoia raises a smirk, with tweed-clad socialists presented, beneath layers of irony, as inserting left-wing political messages into Hollywood scripts, which are represented in the film's imagining of a Ben Hur-alike about Christ. Alden Ehrenreich's "Would that it were so simple" scene is the most memorable of a number of episodic encounters. Probably not essential Coen Brothers, but with some rewatch value.

Lights Out

Based on and with the same director as a viral internet short film, this horror feature about a ghost which only exists in darkness is a competent spooky experience but not much more than that. Probably the most interesting thing about it is that it contrasts to a lot of modern horror films, like the Paranormal Activity series, by having the parent, rather than the child, being the one enabling the creature to terrorise the family. Typically the child is the one who can see or knows about the creature and is manipulated by it, but in this case it's the mother, and it's quite disturbing to see her young son in distress due to her own irrational willingness to let this thing haunt them, and the elder daughter desperately trying to resolve the situation. Nonetheless, the way the problem is resolved is, in my view, a bit cheap, and possibly doesn't convey a terribly good message. It might be worth a watch but it's also not essential unless you want to support a budding director, which perhaps you should.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

I haven't seen all of the Resident Evil films, but the ones I have seen I've enjoyed for their shameless trashiness. While this wasn't a particularly coherent follow up to the previous film, it was enjoyable for dumb grotesque action and a sincere if simplistic effort to resolve the entire plot. Probably what it missed was appearances by more of the series' various supporting protagonists. Recurring villain Wesker is also defeated in a very anticlimactic way. Nonetheless it must be given kudos for the deeply amusing sequence in which Dr Isaacs' cybernetic implants give him a prediction of how he can defeat Alice which ends with him smugly sipping a glass of whisky. The worst thing this daft film could have done was take itself seriously, and it didn't. It's still a stupid film, but it's the kind where I don't care.

Rogue One

I would have dearly loved to have given this my "Worst Film of 2016" award because of how stupendously overrated this was at first release, but that would be dishonest, because it's not badly made, just immensely cynical (perhaps even more than The Force Awakens), thinly written and, its biggest failing, extremely boring. I've already reviewed it as much as I'd care to here. You can also listen to a podcast here (and a follow up here) in which some folks I know express opinions highly comparable to mine on the topic. I'm astonished that people think this is one of the best Star Wars films. Personally I found it dull, with utterly two-dimensional characters and a boring plot. At its core it's just fan-pandering, showing lots and lots of stuff from the original trilogy, up to and including Darth Vader and a creepily-recreated Governor Tarkin. I wish we could see what this would have been before reshoots, as I suspect it would have been a lot better.

Star Trek Beyond

I'm no fan of the reboot Star Trek film series, as can be observed in my scathing review of Star Trek Into Darkness, which I awarded "Worst Film of 2013". As a result I was surprised to discover that I didn't mind Star Trek Beyond. While the plot is still quite boring - the Enterprise goes somewhere, they find a big strong bad dude and at the end Captain Kirk punches him until he falls over - it got me by. I think its biggest strength was that it used the cast as an ensemble, particularly giving greater, deserved screentime to Karl Urban's McCoy, who has always been my favourite in these films, rather than trying to just focus on some angsty relationship between Kirk and Spock. Probably my biggest gripe is that I think it's somewhat badly edited, with some sequences and characters not being set up clearly or coherently, and I don't like the twee way the alien fleet is defeated at the end, but I can live with it, and I think it's almost certainly the best of the reboot films. I wonder if not having JJ Abrams at the helm and/or, more likely, not having those two guys who wrote Transformers and Damon Lindelof penning the script had anything to do with it not sucking as hard...

Yoga Hosers

I know nothing about Kevin Smith films, having only seen most of Clerks one time, which I thought was pretty good. While this film has nothing of the bite of that, in that it only tries to represent the vacuousness of modern youth rather than the hopeless pointless emptiness of modern life, I found it reasonably diverting and I was surprised that it was so unpopular. It reminded me of an Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg feature but less witty. Not sure what to say about this one. The two leads were engaging and Johnny Depp was tolerable. It's stupid and indulgent, but I didn't mind it. 

Thus, of course, my "Worst Film of 2016" Award goes to:

Suicide Squad 

Batman v Superman was one thing, but even I'm not going to try to defend this mess. Frankly, I don't even know why it was made; only nerds like me have heard of pretty much any of the characters in it, and none of them were established in the other DC universe films. Obviously any value it had was wrecked in editing and reshoots, as the cast seems to be introduced twice, there's a subplot about the Joker that doesn't seem to go anywhere, and the main narrative is a "save the world" thing that doesn't explain why they need a team of villains to handle it. Amusingly it won an Academy Award. I liked Affleck's cameo as Batman and I suppose Will Smith and Margot Robbie were okay as Deadshot and Harley Quinn, but the thing I most took away from this was a feeling that no one who was involved in making this really knew what they were doing. While it didn't bore me or annoy me to the same extent as Rogue One, I can't pretend that this wasn't a far bigger disaster. 

Thus, by a process of elimination, my top film of 2016 award goes to:

NO AWARD (yet).

No 2016 film I actually saw deserved "top film", even though some of the better ones, like Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders and The Conjuring 2 kept me entertained; giving any of them "top film" would be going too far. I'll update this when I see a 2016 film that actually deserves it.

Update: Possible Candidate
The Neon Demon
A really weird film by the director of Drive, it stylishly and, in the end, horrifically, examines the superficiality and ruthlessness of the fashion industry. It's most worth it for the long, striking, hypnotic trance sequences and pounding soundtrack, and for the grotesque ending. I believe the film has been criticised for depicting the fashion industry as women victimising each other when the industry itself is still predominantly controlled by men who exploit and manipulate women against each other, which is interesting in itself as something I wasn't aware of before. From a purely visual standpoint, it was probably the most striking 2016 film I've watched in a thematic sense. 

"Ghostbusters" (2016)

No non-threatening, generic, slightly scared-looking ghosts allowed.

When I heard that Ghostbusters was going to be "rebooted" with a new cast, I felt pretty dubious. The time had well and truly come and gone for the original team, but to me a reboot sounded like an act of desperation. Then it was announced that the new cast would be all-female, and I admit I was intrigued. Why? Because my fear was that the "new" Ghostbusters would just be four guys with a passing resemblance to Murray, Aykroyd, Ramis and Hudson and the whole thing would just be a pathetic tribute act like the rebooted version of Star Trek. Four ladies taking the lead made it sound like they couldn't go down the straight "remake" route, so even though I was pessimistic about the idea in general (as I am about most things), I thought that this casting decision was actually an interesting one, something more valid than the alternatives.

The (Stupid) Controversy

"When you're walking down the street-"

It's worth taking a moment to consider the inevitable, but nonetheless stupid and pointless, controversy which occurred as a result of this casting decision. Of course the usual suspects perceived this as part of the alleged encroachment of socially-progressive totalitarianism (which somehow isn't a self-contradictory idea) which only exists in the minds of reactionary paranoiacs, mostly found in internet comments sections and on discussion boards, and the sinister power-mongers who feed them the lies and fallacious arguments that batten their delusions (usually as a way of attaining fame and money by collecting political "followers"). Anyone with a lick of common sense could see how absurd this notion was; rebooting Ghostbusters is primarily a means of Sony Corporation making money without the bother of establishing a new "brand", and if anything it could be argued that they were seeking notoriety, and thus exposure, by courting the exact controversy they received. Yet it's a disturbing rock to peer under, even for profit, because a good deal of online anti-feminism, as far as I can determine in my holding-my-nose peeping into some of the uglier corners of internet discourse, is just one tentacle of a reactionary octopus with some truly revolting conspiracy-theory beliefs at its core, including racism, its neighbours white supremacy and anti-semitism, and in some cases outright fascism and neo-Nazism. Call me a Godwin's Law invoker all you like, but there are some pretty nasty thoughts going on in the brains at the centre of these controversies, thoughts one ought to be cautious about giving too much attention to, or certain kinds of attention. This doesn't mean to say, of course, that all anti-feminists are crazy reactionary authoritarian racists, of course, just that many of their arguments are invented by such people, and many of them, wittingly or unwittingly, are being manipulated by such people. I'm also not trying to condone anti-feminism; I think sincere anti-feminism is almost exclusively just foolish paranoia. I simply think that anti-feminists might want to be aware that, firstly, they're probably taking feminism too personally (seems to be common) and secondly that many of their ideas are calculated pieces of political manipulation generated in the depths of the minds of would-be tyrants seeking money and power. Do you really want to be these people's pawns? I've never understood this train of thought that preaches rugged individualism, "standing out from the herd" as it were, and yet hero-worships "leaders" and talking heads.

On the other hand, many of these various reactionaries are probably just trolls and/or immature teenagers; I really hope so, 'cause otherwise it's a worrying thought about what the internet has really achieved if it has allowed genuine fascists and the like (ie idiots who would probably be amongst the first against the wall if their psychotic imaginings ever actually came to pass) to create giant delusory online fantasylands. At least with mad old people who are rusted-on right wingers and conservatives (usually against their own best interests) you know they mean it. With this lot you can't help but wondering what they'd do just for a laugh or to get a reaction if they had the opportunity.

"-and you see a little ghost-"

Anyway, wasn't the 90s cartoon show Extreme Ghostbusters already way more "progressive" than this? It had a female Ghostbuster, a Hispanic Ghostbuster and a Ghostbuster who was in a wheelchair in addition to the pre-established black Ghostbuster. I wonder if anyone was up in arms about that at the time. They probably were and just didn't have Facebook and Reddit as a means of finding lots of other people to vehemently agree with them and make them feel like everyone in the world was secretly on their "side". That's the thing these reactionary culture warriors don't seem to realise; the overwhelming majority of people aren't sitting around raging on Reddit and Twitter all day and actually don't give a flying shit either way about the enormous list of harmless things they're pointlessly outraged about. That's kind of something these people really need to start to realise: the "silent majority" is not on their "side" or their opponents' "side"; they're apathetic because they've got real things to worry about, like their jobs and their kids. Why don't people understand this?

On a third hand (?), those people who argued that everyone who was negative about the film was in some way being sexist and/or misogynistic were obviously making a ridiculous generalisation. The trailers were really bad and not funny at all. I think the amount of people who actually were making this argument was quite small, and exaggerated by reactionaries (surprise, surprise), but nonetheless I've read some pretty tortured arguments. These include people trying to claim that James Rolfe's video expressing his fan-oriented lack of interest in the new film, for instance, is sexist when I'm pretty sure it just isn't; I didn't find his arguments terribly persuasive, but I felt like they were his personal reasons, not something he expected anyone else to abide by. But I like James Rolfe and don't want people on either "side" to drag him into this futile "culture war" (the term "war" is dignifying these online spats with far more gravitas than is warranted). He seems pretty good on his own, though, at keeping out of these things, and a lot of people don't seem to get that for all his online exposure he's not really part of or clued into "internet culture", which as far as I can tell is an extremely good thing, largely because internet culture is stupid. For my own part, I watched the trailers and didn't think they were funny. I still went and saw the film because I was curious, because of a few early reviews and reactions saying it wasn't that bad and because of...

Casting etc.

"That's great, Ray. Save some for me."

I can't remember when the director and cast were announced, but it turned out Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy were among the leads and Paul Feig was directing, and I liked Bridesmaids, so I thought: this could be funny. As I said above, the trailers were very disappointing. The jokes shown simply weren't funny and I agreed with the argument that the depiction of the character Patty, played by Leslie Jones, seemed like a bit of a racial stereotype. So that wasn't good. Also, the CGI action looked pretty ropey (and indeed it was, but I'll get to that). Nonetheless, I was still curious, and when I realised it was out the next day and a friend of mine and I observed that we both wanted to see it... we went and saw it.

This is a comedy film without a particularly strong narrative (I'll get to that) so I don't think there's much point in me reviewing this in my usual review/recap style, so I'm going to divide this up into categories and sub-categories. Here we go:

"That's the Ghostbusters theme song."
"No."

1. How does it compare to the originals?

Well, firstly, it's obviously not as good as Ghostbusters (1984). It's by its nature not nearly as original and lacks a good deal of the quirkiness of the first film. The style of humour is quite different and doesn't feature the quotable absurdism of the first film. There isn't really a main "funny" character like Bill Murray's Peter Venkman (Egon was always my favourite; poor Harold Ramis), although Kate McKinnon's Holtzmann is the most outwardly facetious. As for Ghostbusters II, well, I can't say really. I watched Ghostbusters II a lot as a kid, so I was never "disappointed" by it the way a lot of fans supposedly are, and I think parts of it are quite memorable and funny, but I haven't seen it for years. If you're in the camp in which you think Ghostbusters II is too similar to Ghostbusters (1984), you might actually find this new one refreshing. If you're in the camp that likes Ghostbusters II because it's similar to the first one, and wants more of the same, you're not going to find it here. Better go rewatch Groundhog Day or something. Maybe play the 2009 video game that featured the original cast. Nonetheless, this 2016 reboot naturally has a lot of references to the original and features cameos from all of the surviving main cast (except Rick Moranis of course, but including Slimer), although some of them come across as begrudging (guess who?).

2. Is it funny? Are the cast good?

Which inferior follow up had a better subway sequence?
This or Ghostbusters II?

Short answer: yes. This is the key thing that supersedes all other considerations: it's a comedy film, and it made me laugh. I laughed out loud quite a lot, and anyone who reads this blog knows I'm very difficult to please. There are a lot of entertaining moments, usually derived from the characterisation. The cast are unsurprisingly strong, given that they come from comedy backgrounds, but the standout is probably Kate McKinnon as Holtzmann, whose regular gags are mostly funny. Kristen Wiig is good too; one of the funniest bits of the film, in my view, is when, after emphatically denying that she believes in the paranormal any more, she sees the first ghost they encounter and enthusiastically declares her belief on camera. Smash cut to her boss at the university, played by an amusingly posh Charles Dance, watching this declaration on YouTube. I personally don't think Melissa McCarthy and Leslie Jones got the best jokes of the piece, but they get the job done. Chris Hemsworth is entertaining as well as the clueless receptionist Kevin, but at times I found him to be a little too stupid; the joke became a bit tired after a while. I think it would have been stronger if he was more eccentric than purely oblivious. He's at his strongest, I would argue, late in the film when he's possessed by the antagonist.

That's not to say there aren't weak or cliché jokes, especially one-liners, and there's a lame metal concert sequence which is totally unconvincing. I'm not a metal fan, but m'colleague used to be (and still is to a tenuous extent), and I know the difference between a real metal concert and Hollywood's twee mental image of a metal concert. Nonetheless, I felt that more of the jokes were successful than not.

I used to be a pall bearer,
but I couldn't stop coughin'.

The cameos from the original cast are a mixed bag. Ernie Hudson's is predictable and perfunctory, as is Sigourney Weaver's; you can tell when she's going to appear by a process of elimination. Annie Potts's cameo is better, but the best is Dan Aykroyd as a curmudgeonly taxi driver who inexplicably knows about ghosts but is unconcerned. Bill Murray has the longest cameo, but supposedly Sony had to threaten to sue him to get him to do it, which is very unfortunate and definitely falls into the "ugly corporate logic" side of this film's production. I'm not sure if the film makes this work in its favour; he's cast as a nay-saying sceptic who shows up demanding that the girls prove their claims to him, but his performance, unsurprisingly, is completely phoned in. The thing I'm not sure about is whether this is a weakness or if the film actually succeeds by channelling Bill Murray's expected disinterest and disdain into the attitude of a minor antagonist, given that he appears to have been the main stumbling block in the way of a "true" Ghostbusters 3 with the original cast ever being made.

3. What's the story like?

"Wanna play Boggle? Or Super Mario Bros.?"

The story's pretty average. Kristen Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig's character, Dr. Erin Gilbert, is reunited with her old colleague Dr. Abby Yates, Melissa McCarthy's character. Abby is now working with Jillian Holtzmann, played by Kate McKinnon, and when they see an actual ghost in an old New York mansion they decide to investigate the paranormal full time. Leslie Jones's character, Patty Tolan, joins them after she sees a ghost at her job in the Subway. Much like the original films they face government interference, but in this case it's because the FBI is investigating ghost activity themselves and wants to keep the situation hushed up. A crazy loner named Rowan is trying to get revenge on the world by bringing about the "Fourth Cataclysm"; he's exacerbating ghost activity by placing devices around the city along ley lines to achieve this. Eventually he succeeds and turns into a powerful spirit and they have to drive the Ecto-1 equivalent into a big portal to stop him. It's all pretty arbitrary, and is mostly about the characters and the comedy.

I didn't actually think this bit was that funny; it's just I've only got
so much material to work with from the clips in the trailer.

Part of the story, as should be clear from this hodge-podge synopsis, has to do with the team dealing with their public perception as frauds, and at times this feels simultaneously overplayed and underplayed. For instance, there are more than a few times when they're annoyed by dismissive or antagonistic social media posts (perhaps reflecting the leadup to the film) but at other times it seems like the public doesn't really perceive their fraudulent nature; I was expecting them to be protested against or abused by the public, but they aren't, and this plot element felt a bit ineptly handled. It's more effectively conveyed by the character of Rowan, who is basically like the Ghostbusters of this film but instead of dealing with the bad hand he's been dealt by life he thinks it's better to take it out on the world at large. This aspect, however, I didn't feel was too heavy handed and I thought it was done with adequate subtlety. My main issue was that I felt there were too many cutaways to Rowan. The audience knows about him before the Ghostbusters do, and the dramatic irony is a bit unexciting. I would have preferred more of a mystery; it might have been more effective if the only times we'd seen Rowan had been when he speaks to Patty at the subway station and when they confront him at the hotel later in the film. The other scenes in which he appears aren't that funny anyway, so as this is a comedy the film wouldn't really suffer by losing them.

In actuality the main story is, in a sense, Erin becoming reconciled to her past and rekindling her friendship with Abby, which is all the film really needs given that it's a comedy. Nonetheless, story isn't really the film's strong point. The characterisation is better, although I'd argue that Abby doesn't have the best characterisation. Honestly, I think Melissa McCarthy is the one who's short-changed by this film. Kristen Wiig's Erin gets the closest thing to a character arc, although Kate McKinnon's Holtzmann gets a more understated one.

4. What's it like visually?

Would the line "this man has no dick" somehow still work in this one?

Naturally, unlike the originals, this film uses CGI rather than practical effects, which is predictable but disappointing. The CGI is rather banal and you can tell that the actors suffer by not having anything "real" to react to. Because the ghosts are so vaporous and smokey at times they're difficult to really "see" clearly which diminishes some of the humour to be derived from their appearance. The effects from the proton packs and so on are all okay but look rather fake at times nonetheless. Probably the strongest visual elements are when physical effects and CGI seem to be blended, as I believe might have happened for instance with the bit where they're destroying the float parades, the last of which is of course the Stay-Puft™ Marshmallow Man.

"See youse all tomorrow!"
-Chris Hemsworth when he was on an Australian soap opera,
according to someone in the TV industry whom I used to know.

The time when CGI is most egregious, however, is in a pointless "battle" scene towards the finale in which the four use various weapons Holtzmann has developed earlier in the film to fight hand-to-hand with ghosts. It simply looks unconvincing, it doesn't serve the story and there are few to no jokes, so the whole thing seems pointless. The end credits feature a comedy dance sequence choreographed (in the story) by Rowan possessing Kevin, which would have been more effective than this. The friend with whom I saw the film stated that the fight scene is basically everything the film threatened to be from the trailers, but confined to one scene; as such, we're fortunate that this aspect is indeed consigned to a single scene.

5. What's my overall impression?

"Meanwhile... Deep beneath Monkey Island™..."

Overall, I was pleased. The film was a good deal better than I expected. It has a weak opening and I was initially dubious, but once it started being funny I found it consistently funny. The cast are engaging and they make the concept work with a new story and new characters. This isn't a remake so much as a reboot, because it's not trying to tell the same story or use the same characters, and in that regard I actually think it succeeds. As of my writing this it's the school holidays and a lot of kids were watching the film. I'd hate to think that this is their first taste of Ghostbusters, but it seemed to have appeal. Don't get me wrong, it's no masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but for me at least it got the job done, and I say that as an enthusiast for both of the originals. The film is doubtless a cash grab, as James Rolfe observes in his video detailing the failed history of the nonexistent Ghostbusters 3, but, and I hate to say it, Ghostbusters has almost always been a cash grab, with a sequel a lot of people apparently didn't like, two animated spin-offs and a slew of merchandise including toys and video games, the majority of the latter being, according to James Rolfe himself in his facetious Angry Video Game Nerd videos, not very good. Thus, by its own standards, I actually think "Ghostbusters 2016" is quite a decent item in the franchise.

"That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me."

Perhaps I was bound to be pleased because my expectations were low, but I don't think so. I wouldn't say that being a fan of the original films will automatically make you amenable to this; I'd more say that you'd want to appreciate that Bridesmaids kind of humour to enjoy this. If your assumption is that this is some kind of outrageous attack on your pre-existing love of Ghostbusters, you probably won't enjoy it. If you know the kind of humour I'm talking about but don't like it, you probably won't enjoy it. On the other hand, if you're curious, give Ghostbusters (2016) a go. When I saw the trailer I thought they'd pulled the tablecloth out, but it turns out that the flowers are still standing.

"There's always room for Jell-O..."