Q. What I find remarkable about the shoopdoggydogg-fest that was the "Female Ghostbusters" is its complete lack of any redeeming features. How on earth did they expect to make any money from it?
A. 'Shoopdoggydogg-fest'? I trust that was an autocorrect error?
Q. It's not outside the realms of possibility.
A. It wasn't a criticism.
Many people find autocorrect errors to be hilarious.
I promise this is going somewhere...
With regards to Ghostbusters (2016), something that a lot of people who have not seen it fail to understand is that it is a low brow, low credibility, low production value, lazy, by the numbers improvised comedy.
This should not be considered a criticism.
The story is little more than a vaguely fertile soil from which (hopefully) many seeds of mirth may flower and fruit. As such, the franchise is irrelevant. It's Star Wars porn, which is a thing, because porn. And Star Wars.
None of this is a criticism either.
The production process (whittled down) amounted to giving the characters a start point for a scene, a place they need to arrive at, and free reign to make that journey as meandering, drawn out and humorous as they possibly can. As a result, scenes go on for much longer than they need to to drive the plot, but as the plot is merely a vehicle and not a goal, the point is moot.
Then it's in the hands of the editors. The side-splitting two hour version of the scene in which the characters are sitting around, the phone rings, and they go out on their first mission is edited down to six or seven minutes by trimming the fat and leaving just the funniest moments in a way that hopefully isn't too poorly timed or haphazard.
This is still not a criticism.
This was exactly the sort of movie it was trying to be.
Q. Put like that, it actually sounds like a typical Adam Sandler movie.
A. A prize to the pretty lady. Or gentleman. It's 2015...
Although he's not the best example, he's certainly an example. Him and other big name improvisation artists know that there are people on this planet who just find him so damned funny. And if a movie essentially boils down to him and some other big names like him being funny together, then that's something these people would happily pay to see, and they're rarely disappointed with what they get. Studios take a gamble on this each time—do enough people with disposable cash find the artist sufficiently funny that one can expect a reasonable return on an investment? With Sandler, it's a great big yes every time.
With Ghostbusters (2016) it was more of a risk. The improvisation artists were less well known, but the known franchise could help make up the balance by bringing in additional customers who enjoyed the original work. The artists would gain additional fans amongst the franchise nostalgia audience, who could then be lured back in to watch potential sequels. With clever marketing, they couldn't lose.
Q. But didn't the marketing consist of alienating the franchise fans and an entire half of the global population by insulting them and calling them terrible awful people? Wasn't it a box office flop?
A. In fairness to marketing, the preview trailers did a very good job of telling the potential audience exactly what kind of movie they were going to be watching. Nobody paid to see that movie expecting a faithful remake/reboot/homage to the classic. They paid to see the movie I've spent this review describing, and that's exactly what they got.
The director on the other hand... He set out to antagonise the audience from the get go. He didn't choose four women to play the titular characters because he felt they would bring something new to the role, he did it to flip the bird at kids who used to bully him at school.
Perhaps he missed the memo about the need for clever marketing to attract franchise fans, and to give it as wide appeal as possible. Or perhaps the memo itself was the problem; most of the intent was likely inferred rather than stated outright, making it far too subtexty for self-professed male director Paul Feig to fully appreciate.
They probably should have gotten a man to write it.
NOTE: The author of this review has not actually seen the movie in question. In fact, if it appears on Hulu the author may be tempted to cancel his or her subscription, as he or she would hate to think they were in any way funding the movie by proxy.
Update
I asserted above that the director had deliberately antagonised fans of the original franchise. This was based on comments he'd made in an unrelated interview that would reasonably lead to this conclusion. However, while searching for this interview, I found myself reviewing numerous other interviews and commentaries from both before the film's production and after its release. In them I noticed certain incongruous consistencies with his attitude, that have led me re-evaluate his intent.
What many of us living on earth understand full well is that we find ourselves in a volatile time of gender, race and sexuality politics. Gender swapping the leads of a beloved major franchise as recently as a decade ago would have been considered a bold and adventurous move. Now, it can only be interpreted as political: antagonistic and pandering to one kind of person, a victory against the system to another.
The change however is with us, the beholders, and it would make no sense to assume that a director of his stature (heard of in mainstream circles) would have his ear this close to the ground.
To date, he has been entirely consistent in his assertions that:
1) He has more experience directing female leads; that
2) There was no way he could improve on the classic within the existing paradigm, so
3) An all female cast meant he could approach it from an untried angle producing something new that wasn't in competition with the beloved classic, while also working with what he knows.
That he foolishly accepted the job at such a volatile period is unfortunate, but I cannot in good conscience say that he approached this low brow, low credibility, low production value, lazy, by the numbers improvised comedy with anything but the best intentions.
We did the rest.
Something else that can be understood about Paul Feig is that perhaps he shares something in common with Kwon Soon Kuen, the notorious Korean drummer. He has stated before (paraphrased) that he spent decades playing the drums in public performances genuinely believing that his performance style was normal—if it wasn't, then why would he keep getting high profile gigs? Feig no doubt similarly believes that his way of making films is a good way to make films, because the studios keep asking him to come and make more. He genuinely believes he is creating a quality product.
I still have absolutely no intention of ever watching it though.
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