Ghostbusters 2016 review

So much potential, so little reward.

I really debated whether or not I would you review this movie. As I'm getting the blog back up and running I realize I should do more movie and book reviews. I have not seen a lot of movies this summer but this is one that friends insisted that I see. In short, I was not impressed. To put it bluntly, the movie had good bones, but just wasn't good. It focused on the wrong things.

In general, I'm not a big fan of Hollywood's endless reboots of late.  For every reboot that goes well, Christopher Nolan's Batman, there are reboots that are just horrible, Terminator Genisys.  Ghostbusters Falls somewhere in between.

From the day it was announced, the movie seemed to want to generate controversy.  I had no issue with an all female Ghostbusters, though felt that a more integrated cast would have been better.  I don't know Paul Feig's work very well, the few movies titles of his I recognize, I never saw.  They just didn't look like something I or my wife wanted to see.  I find Kristen Wiig hilarious in almost everything I've seen her in.  I'm not a fan of Melissa Mccarthy, though I know many people who are.  Rosie Jones is somewhat hit or miss with me, but I found her to be the funniest member of the cast.  Erin Gilber, I don't know if I've ever seen her before, but then I haven't SNL in years.

This movie ultimately failed because it was a reboot, I think.  People are sick of reboots.  Audiences want original content.  And in cases where a reboot or delayed sequel does come, they want it to respect the original.  After the original creators of Ackroyd, Reitman, and Ramis (RIP) spent years trying to make their own reboot / continuation / hand off movie, a reboot without them bordered on insulting.

I think one of the large reasons that this movie failed is because most of the characters were one-dimensional or two dimensional at best. Let's start with the one-dimensional characters. Every male character in the movie, with the exception of the bad guy, was a one dimensional prop. Chris Hemsworth's secretary was inexcusably stupid. I hate inexcusably stupid characters. By comparison, Annie Potts' Janine from the original was a smart, sassy, funny character with attitude and some great lines. I don't know anyone who felt insulted by Annie Potts' character. By the way, her cameo in the movie was excellent, probably the best one. Andy Garcia's mayor again, completely one-dimensional.

Even the main cast was largely not fleshed out. 

Kristen wiig's character, whose name I can't even remember, just fell flat. She was obviously supposed to be the Bill Murray of the group and it didn't work, which is odd, because she's a funny actress. 

Melissa McCarthy's character was obviously supposed to be the Aykroyd,but  none of her jokes were funny. The few I can remember revolved around her food orders getting messed up and her berating the delivery boy.  

Rosie Jones honestly had some of the funniest moments in the movie. Her character was also probably the most fleshed-out. In a lot of ways, she had the most to offer to the team. 

The character of Holtzmann, was supposed to be the Egon of the group. She was no Egon. The character of Egon and even Dan Akroyds's character in the originals worked because they were straight men. Egon never got the joke, he was always serious. Funny things happened around him and he didn't realize it. He'd be flirted with and didn't get it, he'd subtly tell Murray how much to charge, and it was hilarious, but he didn't see it. Dan Aykroyd's character was always over eager and into everything that was going on. Even he didn't get the joke half the time. The character of Holtzman seemed to always be setting up the next joke, most of which fell flat.

One of the things that made the original so good and also gave it a lot of depth is that busting ghosts was more than just a scientific Endeavor for these characters. It was also a business and their income source. These were scientists who had been discredited due to their findings and beliefs and had to find a way to make a living. There were multiple scenes about how they got their money and how they would eventually run out of it. Prior to busting their first ghost, Slimer, they were almost out of funds they were going to be destitute. This movie had none of that. 

Beyond what was just simply supposed to be the scientific endeavor, there was no mention of where they got their funds or their equipment. The only indication about their funding and equipment, was that they stole large pieces of equipment from their University. By the way that would not have been enough to build everything they had.  After that it, appeared that they built all the rest of their equipment out of scrap.  I'm an engineer none of that would have worked. By having them steal all of that equipment it would have made them criminals. Also what kind of scientist, Melissa McCarthy's character, doesn't know that their equipment has a function where it moves, especially since she "designed it herself."

While on the subject of equipment.  What kind of scientist tests out highly dangerous equipment in a back alley?  That was beyond irresponsible and resulted in quite a bit of property damage.  This also occurred after Rosie Jones entered the group, she could have given them access to unused subway tunnels or closed train yards.

Does this movie have redeemable qualities? Yes. Could this movie have been saved in the writing stages? Yes quite easily.

I'm a fixer by Nature. When I see something that could be good I want to fix it. Maybe it's the engineer in me, maybe it's the writer. Whatever the case, I see many ways in which this movie could have been fixed in small subtle ways that would have made it better. 

The core movie itself was good. The Ghostbusters concept should have work in today's world. All the various Ghost Hunter shows out there prove that people are willing to believe in the existence of ghosts. The movie even references this. The movie has a lot of good references in it to the originals and to the modern world. 

I will say however, that I found it shocking that only one person in the movie ever used a cellular phone. The movie seems trapped in a different age. Anyone who's seen the previews, and not the movie, will know the scene at the concert of the girl use a selfie stick, who still uses a selfie stick?, to take a picture of herself, Rosie Jones, and some kind of demon. That is the only time someone whips out a phone to take pictures. By contrast, look at the new Doctor Who. In Matt Smith's first episode, when the aliens invade, the way he tells that somebody, Rory, knows something more is going on is that he's the only one not taking pictures with his cell phone.

So how would I have changed this movie to make it better? Well there's a couple of easy fixes that I would have used:

#1:  Make the movie a continuation of the original not a reboot. 

There's a reference in the movie about how they've covered up similar incidents in the past obliquely regarding ghosts. That could have been worked into the movie much better to make it a full-on continuation of the original Ghostbusters. Look at Star Wars episode 7, one of the reasons it works so well was that it was a continuation of the old story bringing it into a new generation.

#2:  Moving out of New York. 

Now hear me out here. With a largely Saturday Night Live based cast I understand why they made it be New York again. But why not move it someplace else? Maybe it's just because I'm from the west coast and the southeast, I really don't care that much about movies based in New York that are constantly referencing things in New York. Why not move it someplace new, some place that might not get as much exposure in movies. Now that I'm based in Seattle maybe I'd like to see it someplace up with the Pacific Northwest. Or how about down for their self down in LA, or Dallas, or Chicago, or any other major or minor muscle. It did not have to be New York and by taking it out of New York it could have taken the whole concept in a fresher Direction.

#3:  Have the movie be a handoff. 

This could have been done this very easily.  The beginning could be largely unchanged.  But after they find their first ghost, they are contacted by the remaining members of the original Ghostbusters. At that point it's revealed that ghost activity has been pretty low level for the last couple decades. 

It could even be a great meta reference to all the ghost hunting TV shows. The Ghostbusters themselves are funding these TV shows in order to find ghosts throughout the country. They then send in one of their regional franchises to catch any ghosts that are too dangerous or  harassing to the owners of the properties. 

The Ghostbusters than offer the new lady Ghostbusters a franchise. This takes care of so many issues in the movie in particular those involving funding. From there the movie could be largely unchanged you could still have these characters busting their first ghost getting caught in public at cetera. But instead of the mayor telling them that they can't be so public, it's Ghostbusters headquarters telling them this. They could then explain that with the help of the government they have kept the existence of ghosts to a minimum.

It also creates a great means of character growth.  Imagine them receiving their first shipment of OG ghostbusting gear, and Holtzman commenting on how "80s" it is before souping them all up to create their new gear.

#4:  More fleshed-out characters. 

All of these characters could have been fleshed out a lot more. By having the movie be a continuation instead of a reboot, it would have allowed the characters to become much more their own as well. At the same time make The Supporting Cast not insulting and more real. Especially the secretary character. Chris Hemsworth's character could have been very funny very sassy very maybe not as intelligent as the rest of the crew but he didn't have to be just an idiotic pretty face. If they wanted that they should have cast Ashton Kutcher.

It would have even allowed for them to fix some of the character mistakes of the original.  Winston, for instance, was originally written as an Air Force Veteran who helped teach them tactics.  The studio forced the change to have him instead be a guy off the street looking for a job because Ernie Hudson was an unknown (another good cameo, but not as good as Annie Potts').  They could given that backstory to Rosie Jones' character, and it would have made a nice nod to the original as well. 

#5:  Make the final villain's form more original.

Don't get me wrong, that the villain was a live person manipulating ghosts was great.  His final form however was far too marshmallow man like for my tastes however.  I liked that he used their symbol as his final form, sort of, but it just felt off.

#6:  Overuse of CGI.

This one should go without saying.  In an age when practical effects are making a comeback, neon CGI ghosts just don't work anymore.  Even the scariest movies of late that use ghosts hardly show the ghosts.

With those changes the movie, and even the franchise could have been saved.  At this point however, it is dead in the water and I doubt that we'll get any kind of continuation.

Overall I give the move a 3/5 stars.  It has the bones of a good movie, it just failed to deliver in the end.

Terminator GENiSYS Review.

Terminator GENiSYS review.

Warning, there will be spoilers.

You have been warned.

Still here?

Ok, let’s begin.

Let me just say, that despite it’s many flaws, I love the Terminator franchise.  I have ever since I saw the original Terminator, when I was far too young to be allowed to see an R-rated movie mind you, but hey it was the 80s and my grandparents slept in late.

I still consider the original Terminator to be one of the best sci-fi-action-thrillers ever put on screen.  It is a tightly written causal loop time travel story, that is made even moreso by the scenes cut from the theatrical release.  In those scenes we see Kyle Reese dealing with being a man out of time, cliché, but was well done and showed that Michael Beihn had some real acting chops.  The other key scene was at the end where an employee at the plant where the Terminator is destroyed shows the damaged arm and chip to his friend, who then tells him to hide them, shuffling his friend out of frame in time to show the cybverdine systems logo behind them.  Had the franchise ended there all would be right with the world.  Terminator did not need a sequel, nor did anyone really want one.  Some people call the movie’s ending bleak, but they forget that while Judgement Day was coming, the war was won thanks to John Connor, otherwise Reese and the Terminator would never have been sent back in time, and John would not have been conceived.

There is a funny scene in the later half of the movie where they compare the heights of all the actors.  Funny but not right for a Terminator Movie.

I’ll discuss the other movies later, but let’s jump to GENiSYS.  (Yes I am writing it that way for a reason, will get back to that later).  On the whole, it was a fun summer action movie, with plenty of cheesy one liners, explosions enough to make Michael Bay’s mouth water, and gunplay to satisfy your post July-4^th need for action.  It lacked the tension and the sense of unrelenting doom that original Terminator brought to screen.  On the whole, this soft reboot of the franchise (which relies heavily on the viewer having seen the previous movies) is what I would call a missed opportunity.

The movie opens with Kyle Reese’s Monologue about how his future history, including Judgement Day and how he eventually meets John Connor (played by Jason Clarke, he does a great job BTW for the most part).  This is well done, but feels very much like a book prologue, and on the whole, I prefer how the original handled this.  It also throws out the continuity established in Terminator Salvation for how John and Kyle meet.  When John kills an early terminator, saving Kyle, it is great, the Terminator in question doesn’t look like Arnold, reinforcing that they don’t all look alike.

We then continue into the future war all the way up to the final battle, where John Connor leads an assault on a Skynet work camp, instead of the assault on the Skynet main core in Colorado.  Kyle questions this, but John assures him that there is a reason.  All looks hopeless when suddenly all the Terminators, Hunter Killers, etc… all shutdown Phantom Menace style with the destruction of Skynet over a thousand miles away.  But it’s too late, and a T-800 model 101 has been sent back to 1984.

The resistance then takes the base and Kyle is sent back in time. Ladies the following scenes are for you, naked Jai Courtney and CG naked Arnold.  However I must point something out here.  Michael Biehn was a wirey guy, that fit the role of a man fighting for his life in the post-apoc, Jai Courtney is a beefy bruiser, while he handled the role well, he had far too much muscle mass for the role.  This is where things start to change.  *** SPOILERS HERE ***  The biggest surprise, which wasn’t shown in the trailers happens here.  The Doctor, I mean Matt Smith, or an all new terminator type, played by Matt Smith, attacks John Connor just as Kyle begins to travel back in time.  Kyle then proceeds to see two different possible timelines, the one he grew up in, and one where Judgment day was postponed 20 years.  In the process, the Kyle sees two pivotal events that will help him later.

Your Four John Connor's to date:
Wheres the Beef, Chicken Sandwich, Whopper Junior, In 'N out 4x4.

Kyle and the T-800 arrive in 1984, much like the original.  Only in the case the T-800 is intercepted before getting his snazzy punker duds by an older T-800 who it proceeds to get into a brawl with before someone with a Barret M82 50Cal Sniper rifle drills a special round through the chest of the T-800.  How they got hold of a gun that was only introduced 4 years earlier is left unstated.  The CG Arnold is not terrible, and in most shots looks pretty good, not entirely convincing, but close enough.  In too many shots it still looks very claylike with some serious uncanny valley, which kind of works for the character.

The image on the left is from the trailer (it looks better in the final film) and the right from the original Terminator.  Close, but not close enough.

Meanwhile Kyle finds himself pursued by a T-1000 while he steals some clothes from a homeless man.  He is arrested by two uniformed police officers during the chase.  One is killed, while the other releases him just before Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke, rocking more the T-2 Linda Hamilton look that the T-1 poffy 80s hair) smashes into the clothing store in an armored truck and saves him.  “Come with me if you want to live!”

I know which Sarah Connor I prefer.
Two Games of Thrones Actresses play Sarah Connor, I wonder if they ever joke about that.

Kyle is left obviously confused as to why meek little Sarah Connor just saved him and has a Terminator guardian.  There is a brief fight about this and a chase by the T-1000 before they lead it back to a trap they’d been setting for it since 1973.  Seems that the older T-800 was sent back in time, by person’s unknown, to protect Sarah and raise her into being a warrior woman.  “Pops,” as she has named him, has even briefed her on whole Kyle Reese will be to her, the father of her future savior son, John Connor.  She has some very awkward talks with Pops  about why she doesn’t immediately jump Kyle’s bones, and there is definite tension between Kyle and Pops, not just because he is a Terminator, but also some father-suitor issues going on.

The trio defeats the T-1000 by raining acid on it.  I liked this bit, it was well done.  They also melt down the younger T-800 in the acid.  Pops is damaged in the fighting though with several facial scars and the flesh of his right hand melted away before Sarah can treat it with an acid neutralizing Base solution.  This hand was also damaged when fighting the younger T-800, and will come back into play later.

Sarah and Pops then reveal their plans to Kyle.  They have constructed a one-time use time machine that will send them forward to 1997, so that they can destroy Skynet before Judgement Day.  Kyle  correctly points out however that they have now altered the timeline, and that now Skynet will go online in 2017 using a Trojan Horse program called GENiSYS.  This was the first message he received from his younger self, the second is a hand gesture he shows Sarah, one that only comes about because of the 1973 intervention of Pops and the T-1000 (it had been hunting her for 10 years).  This convinces her to jump forward to 2017 instead.  Ladies more naked Jai Courtney, gentlemen, it’s PG-13 so we get some above the butt backside of Emilia Clarke only, go watch Game of Thrones if you want more.

Kyle and Sarah arrive in the middle of the San Francisco freeway, disrupting traffic, a callout to  the Sarah Connor Chronicles.  Pops was supposed to meet them there, taking “the long road” and waiting for them for 33 years preparing.   He, unfortunately, gets caught in traffic and they are arrested, and taken to a local hospital.  There two detectives are told to process them before homeland security arrives, but another detective, an older drunk detective (JK Simmons) insists that there is something more about these two, he recognizes Kyle.  He even bursts in on the interrogation and after revealing that he was the surviving beat cop from 1984, Kyle starts a ruckus and the detectives leave when told that Homeland has arrives. 

The Homeland Security agent turns out to be John Connor.  He helps the pair to escape as Pops arrives at the Hospital with a giant teddy bear, and accidentally reveals that he Kyle is his father.  The quartet meet back up in the parking garage where Pops attacks John with no explanation before John gets back up and reveals himself to be, you guessed it a Terminator (come on it was in the previews).  John is an all new type of Terminator created by Skynet at the very end that replaces every cell in the person’s body with magnetically adhering nanobots.  A fight ensues and the trio escape thanks to trapping John with an MRI machine.

I won’t spoil the rest, or reveal too much more about the plot.  Needless to say the heroes fight to stop skynet going online.  Cyberdyne has created an app/OS called GENiSYS that links all electronic devices, phones, tablets, computers, cars, even military hardware (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA) and it goes online in less than 24 hours.  Once that happens, and everyone downloads it, Skynet will come online and start Judgement Day.  The heroes eventually prevail and destroy the Cyberdyne HQ, stopping GENiSYS from going online, and averting Judgement Day, happy ending.  I was told later that there is an after credits scene with a server node  comes back online and the holographic Skynet is shown to be alive (can we please stop these stupid after credit’s scenes?).

All in all it was fun and as a straight action movie (with too much comedy) would give it a Shield Rating of 77%.

The PG-13 rating really hurt this movie in a lot of ways, and no not because of the lack of nudity or cussing.  The PG-13 rating pushed the humor and forced the removal of the blood and gore that made the earlier Terminator movies feel so much more real and gave them that sense of dread.  In all the earlier movies blood dripped off the T-800s when they took damage.  The scene in T-2 when the Terminator rips the skin off its arm to reveal the blood soaked metal beneath sells the scene.  There is none of that here and it hurts the movie as a result.

Look at all that gore.

Bloody, bloody, bloody.

Umm, that looks awfully clean for having half a face torn of 2 seconds ago.

As a Terminator movie, and a time travel movie, I give it a Shield Rating of 42%.

I was hoping this would be a full on reboot of the series and it really could have been.  Keeping just the primary elements of the story this could have been done very well and could have formed a nice Causal Loop story.  The Comedy in it, while funny, was in appropriate to the tone of what a Terminator Movie is supposed to be.  T-2 started introducing the Comedy, but it was delivered in an uncomfortable way that reminded the audience of the dire nature of the situation.  The whole tone of the movie was too light hearted to be Terminator.

That Smile is pretty terrifying though.

The movie could have easily been made into a true reboot with just some minor changes:

#1.  Erase the original timeline, just throw it out, no more 1984 attack, no more 1997 Skynet.  Done, kaput, no more.  The Star Trek reboot should never be taken as the format by which to reboot all franchises.  The New Battlestar Galactica had it right, start fresh, make some slight nods to the original and move on.

#2.  Modernize the whole thing.  There is a great line in the movie about how they can find nothing the system on Sarah Connor, no fingerprints, no facial recognition through Social Media, etc…  Take that idea and run with it and incorporate that into some good social commentary.

#3.  Keep Pops, I liked him actually but send him back to 2007 to rescue young  Sarah Connor, right when Social Media was starting to come into being and before the pervasive use of smart phones.

#4.  In 2017 Sarah Connor come back into play, she is spotted on Social Media when she and Pops come out of hiding and start their bid to take down Skynet.

#5.  Multiple Terminators are sent back to stop her and ensure the creation of Skynet as well.

#6.  The resistance still wins in the future and sends back Kyle.  Once Kyle is sent back John then orders another T-800-101 out of storage before something attacks him, maybe even show another model terminator attack him.

#7.  The rest can move along much for the movie, did but remove the comedy, or make it darker, this a serious and dark story.  Have Sarah save Kyle, the uncomfortable bit with Pops, all that and make some real social commentary about too much inter-connectivity in devices.

#8.  Instead of the birth of GENiSYS causing Judgment from the start show/explain that the Skynet consciousness evolves from it, and eventually blackmails the military into installing into their weapon systems, or installing Skynet.

#9.  This is the important part, have them fail to stop Genisys, let them blow up the main site, only to see the countdown continue and the altered John Terminator reveal that there was more than one server location before it dies.

#10.  Show the survivors escape back into the wild, with shots taken from various social media, and CCTV sources.  Maybe even show Sarah as pregnant and agonizing over whether or not to tell him what will happen to him, if it even really was him and not some kind of copy.  Include messages they post to the web about not trusting GENiSYS or Skynet, warnings that allow people to escape and get out of the line of fire once Judgment Day comes.

#11.  Final bit, maybe make this an in credits (not post credits scene).  Fast forward through Judgmetn Day and the war back to the time travel device, after the attack that  “kills John.”  Show another group of resistance fighters arrive and retake the time machine, their leader ( a woman) orders the second T-800-101 readied to be reprogrammed and sent back, also show her grieving the loss of John.  This could be an older Sarah or possibly John’s future wife.

*** BONUS ROUND ***

This next bit is cribbed from a conversation I had on a discussion board about the Terminator Franchise but explains my thoughts on the individual entries.

I grew up watching a version of the Terminator my G-Pa got that had the cut scenes at the end (back in the 80s) that showed how the whole plot was a casual loop, and how skynet planned to bring about its creation even with the death of Sarah and John.  The reveal that the final battle took place at Cyberdine, and that those parts of the terminator survived forms the basis for the creation of Skynet.  Even if the terminator were successful, it likely would have self destructed at Cyberdine in order to ensure the creation of Skynet.

T2 threw the causal loop out the window with its ending, and no one in the movie ever mentions it.  Even the cut scenes didn't help matters, there is no reason to ever create the time machine to ensure John Conner's birth and even if you did, they would have to send a terminator and a brainwashed Kyle Reese back in time to do so, to ensure John grows up the right way.  Taken on its own T2 can be a good, fun illogical (lets change the past) sci-fi action movie, but it fails as a sequel to a true Causal loop storyline, and also breaks some of the rules established by T1.

T3, I view as a poor attempt to try and correct the timeline.  It shows that somehow the Cyberdine tech survived, and all they managed to do was delay Judgement Day.  It could have been done better, with a better John Connor, but it tried to correct the issues left by T2.  Even then it leaves massive plot holes, especially in regards to why Kyle tells Sarah certain dates for Judgement Day, that obviously are wrong.

T4.  This movie should have saved the franchise.  They jump forward, have an awesome cast, and show us the future war.  Unfortunately it was saddled with bad plotting and a terrible director that just bogged the whole thing down.  The root story should have worked, and some nice twists could have been worked in, but the fact that Skynet knew who Kyle Reese was ruined things.  All the new terminators, especially the giant one, just made no sense and screwed with things.  If it had just been the story of how John C rose to power as the leader of the resistance, and met Kyle it would have been great.  It maybe could have even introduced or foreshadowed the T-800 at the end, or showed early T-600 infiltration attempts, instead of making them those lumbering oversized humanoids.  A proper sequel, or two, would have shown the resistance coming full force against the T-800 infiltrators, and getting their butts handed to them before turning the tide and making the final push on Skynet HQ.  The last movie could then end with showing Kyle travel back in time to save Sarah, along with any other Terminator(s) that are sent back.

What people tend to forget with the original Terminator, is that by having Sarah/John live, we win the war.  Yes, Judgement Day is coming, and that is a dark immediate future, but John will save humanity from Skynet, and the only reason he can is because he defeats Skynet before the movie begins.  Sending the Terminator back in time was a last ditch effort by Skynet because it had to know the risks of doing so, and possibly knew it had to do so no matter what.  Kyle getting sent back is because the human defeated Skynet and so they send him to ensure that John will be born, live and be there to defeat Skynet.