[5.8/10] Your childhood remains intact. Despite all the hand-wringing, hue and cry, and latent misogyny involved at every turn since the prospect of a female-fronted *Ghostbusters* reboot emerged, the end result does no harm to its 1984 predecessor. It is thoroughly fine at its worst, has its amusing stretches, and if anything, takes too much care in honoring and referencing all of the most recognizable elements of the original film. But it’s also a widely unremarkable, middle-of-the-road studio comedy that would have otherwise risen and fallen without fanfare were it not for the everpresent specter of marketable IP and the ensuing manbaby revolt that followed. 2016’s *Ghostbusters* (or *Ghostbusters: Answer the Call* as it was rebranded on video) is an adequate, mostly forgettable flick, whose problems have nothing to do with either the brand name it adopted or the gender of its main characters. Instead, *Answer the Call* stumbles by offering too shaggy a tale without strong or consistent enough humor to support the places where its narrative and pacing starts to sag. The plot of the film sees Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig), a lapsed ghosthunter re-teaming with estranged pal and true believer Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy) and her gizmo-inventing second Jillian Holtzman (Kate McKinnon) once they finally get a bead on some real ghosts. Along the way, they add Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones), who offers an encyclopedic knowledge of New York City, to the group and a new quartet of Ghostbusters is born. The four of them gain notoriety in New York for busting spooks at locales as varied as stuffy historical houses and raucous rock concerts. That brings them to the attention of the mayor’s office, which privately thanks them but publicly decries them as frauds, and also puts them in the crosshairs of Rowan, a creep who’s involved with each ghostly appearance and laments his history of bullying. The plot is loose and rarely attended to, which is fine for a comedy. The film pays some half-hearted lip service to the notion of Erin and Abby becoming estranged when no one believed their ghost stories, and one retreated from their ghostly claims while the other doubled down, but it’s scant and generally unaffecting. Instead, *Ghostbusters* is essentially a loose connection of sketches around a specter-centric theme that don’t so much progress as roll into one another. Again, that’s not an issue in and of itself. Lord knows that the 1984 film was far from a tightly-plotted master class in nimble storytelling. But if the progression of events isn’t going to power your movie and keep the audience on board from scene-to-scene, then your humor has to carry the load, and *Answer the Call* isn’t up to that challenge. Most of the humor in 2016’s *Ghostbusters* is broad and loud and occasionally gross. Despite (or maybe because of) having the talented Melissa McCarthy on board, the film defaults to corny slapstick humor, whether it involves Abby being bounced around an alley by the latest bit of tech, or briefly possessed and sent into fisticuffs by an evil ghost, or squished by a malevolent parade balloon. And while McCarthy brings some good laughs in the person-to-person scenes with less of those theatrics, Wiig is a vacuum of charisma as the film’s (relative) straight man, reduced to being continually covered in slime or awkwardly hitting on the Ghostbusters’ secretary, Kevin (Chris Hemsworth), in a vain attempt to generate yuks. And Kevin is really the posterboy for the film’s middling sense of humor. He’s a surprisingly big part of the film, and the only joke *Ghostbusters* can up with about the character are variations on the same, TGIF sitcom-level “he’s really dumb” gag. That’s par for the course in this movie, where few, if any, of the jokes have layers. Instead, it almost always goes for the easiest, plainest gag. That’s not helped by how lumpy the film’s editing and pacing is. There’s something to be said for preserving the improvisational atmosphere of a particular moment in comedy, but scene after scene in *Ghostbusters* just goes on forever, without any of the tight editing necessary to make sure the jokes don’t wear out their welcome. There’s a slack vibe to the movie, one where the funny moments are surrounded by too much flab to really hit with the force they should. The saving grace in the comedy department is the three current *Saturday Night Live* cast members. Kate McKinnon steals every scene she’s in, between her silly dances and her affectionate technobabble for her latest inventions. Jones is extraverted as usual, but lands some of the movie’s best lines and asides. And Cecily Strong plays one of the mayor’s advisors, whose ability to politely encourage the Ghostbusters in private but condescendingly slag them in public becomes hilarious with Strong’s delivery. Oddly enough, despite the greater focus on humor, the film manages to better in terms of action than comedy. While the compositing is a little off and obvious in places, the movie presents some creative and creepy-looking ghosts, and one of the film’s most enjoyable sequences features the Ghostbusters doing battle with a veritable horde of them. However much it falters in other places, *Ghostbusters* has a fun aesthetic, with colorful, neon hues on the purple-blue-green spectrum and enough smoke and mirrors to make the atmosphere spooky without veering too much into creepy, that makes the more kinetic scenes stand out. There’s just not enough in the film to keep you hooked for through its logy, two-hour and fifteen-minute runtime. There’s beaucoup winks and nods at the franchise’s past trademarks, and signature bits and plenty of creative ghouls to do battle with. But there’s also a distinct lack of momentum, too many attempts to fill the dead air with gags that have a middling-at-best batting average, and a cast of talented performers who never quite jell. Rest assured, the bones of the 1980s ghostbusting films remained undisturbed. There are worse ways to spend a couple of hours at the theater than 2016’s *Ghostbusters*, and in the final tally, the movie is more forgettable than bad. But strip away the baggage that *Answer the Call* was unfairly saddled with, and you’re left with a middling remake, without enough verve or laughs to make it more than just another piece of generic studio entertainment that’s not worth getting excited about one way or another.

For me it felt like they were trying way to hard to be funny and it felt forced. Reading the reviews made me feel a bit insecure... I must have a bad taste in humor since i didn't laugh once! Awful acting, no chemistry, poor script and terrible editing, it seemed rushed! Some visual effects were looking awesome, and that was actually one of the few reasons I kept watching. In the original I adored the Marshmallow Man and I was glad to see him back in this movie. Overall a very disappointing reboot that feels like a cheap politically motivated Hollywood cash in. What a waste of an opportunity to make at least a reasonable modernized version of a great movie. The original is so much better!