Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I was really looking forward to this, I never really trusted trailers, but this time, they were pretty accurate. I got to see the film about 8 days before release at an advanced showing. "Ghostbusters 2016" is to "Ghostbusters" what "1000 Ways to Die in the West" is to "Blazing Saddles". The humor is very different, less witty and more broad. In the originals, the characters rarely played as if they were in on the joke, and it worked phenomenally, in this one, almost every joke played as if it was aimed directly at the audience with a light up sign that says "laugh". The cast. On their own they come off as trying to hard to be odd characters. They each seem to be more of an exaggeration of their character aside from McCarthy, who unfortunately just played McCarthy. However, when it comes to interacting with each other and other characters the banter just worked. Hemsworth is both representative of the film and what the film wants to be. Many times he just plays a stupidly exaggerated moron, but at times he steals the show, despite only being in a small percentage of the film he manages to get the best laughs. The cameos are somewhat wasted. The Ernie Hudson and Harold Ramis (well, not actually him, that would be creepy) was the only two that I found to be mildly respectable. Bill Murray's was funny on paper and in concept, but just doesn't hit it's mark, and I don't know how anyone who would have thought Dan Akroyds cameo was of any value. The look. The special effects are passable for a majority of the film. It's not until the big fight scene that they become hard to stomach. It's very clear the film is so much more about spectacle than grounded comedy. The cast in the aforementioned fight also "look" as if they're just jumping and tumbling around in front of a green screen. The outfits are altered in a way that makes sense, they don't quite look right, but not because they look bad, but because you keep thinking about the originals. The story/lore. Since the trailers started coming out, it gave the impression that it couldn't decide if it was a continuation or a reboot. The film starts with some similar story points as the original. Early in the film they establish that their weapons just hold the ghosts, instead of outright destroying them, in order to trap them with their other tools, later this is completely thrown out the window. A some point their weapon just start annihilating the ghosts without any reason for it other than to have faster paced action. Another thing about the weapons/tools, the "special" weapons come off as if they just wanted to merchandise things from the film. They come off as just trying to be cool (ghost busting gauntlet, WTF?) and to be different just to be different. At least the slime packs from "Ghostbusters 2" were created for story purposes. In short, "Ghostbuster 2016" is all flash and little substance. Throughout it comes off as wanting to be the originals and wanting to be something new, but can never decide which. This movie is pretty much everything wrong with Hollywood today.