Movie Review #33

Ghostbusters (1984)
Directed by Ivan Reitman
Written by Dan Aykroyd & Harold Ramis

Rating: 3.50/10.00 or * 1/2 (out of 4)

There is nothing worse than a comedy that tries to be campy and fails at both being funny and being campy. Ghostbusters is proof of this.

Now, granted, most of you will disagree. I just went though a series of reviews on IMDB and Amazon.com. Review after review said "funniest movie of all time" or "classic" or "most memorable movie of the 80s," etc. After watching the movie in its entirety about two months ago, I just can't understand why opinions of this movie are so high. I found the movie crude, unfunny, and boring.

Yes, boring. Because I get bored when I don't laugh while watching a movie that is supposed to make me laugh. I get bored when the funny moments are interrupted by "dazzling" special effects and "unforgettable" visual moments. Oh, wait, the special effects aren't "dazzling" and the visual moments (with some rare exceptions) are far from memorable. To be fair, it could be argued that the special effects might have been dazzling in the middle 1980s and not so today (Many reviews have often commented that the special effects seem to have deteriorated with time, becoming outdated.). So is it whiggish of me to say the special effects are not dazzling?

I give you several examples of movies that had dazzling special effects with small budgets: Star Wars (Well, the first one, or the fourth one, or whatever.), 2001: A Space Odyssey, Jaws, etc. To call the special effects dazzling when compared to these movies made previous to Ghostbusters is like calling The Godfather Part III the most riveting Francis Ford Coppola film.

The BETTER argument for the special effects, and perhaps the more accurate, of Ghostbusters is that they were never intended to be "dazzling." Wasn't the intent of this film to make its audience laugh? To be "campy"? The filmmakers probably didn't even give a second thought to the fact that they should make astounding special effects. With the intent of making the film campy/funny, special effects should take a back seat. And perhaps their age over the last 20 years shows this.

Ok, enough about this rather minute point to begin with. My major problem with this film is that it is not funny. I laughed a total of three times while watching the movie. Three. Two of which I can no longer remember. The third laugh was perhaps one of the more memorable moments of the movie: "We came, we saw, we kicked its ass!" And that's it.

Needless to say, that is not good enough for my taste. A comedy that lasts as long as this one must sustain humorous moments, not chop them up with interruptions of grandiosely bad special effects. Review after review claims this movie as having exceptionally witty dialogue. Um, where? You may think that such lines as "mother pus bucket" or "I feel like the floor of a taxi cab." are intelligent, humorous, funny, whatever. I, however, beg to differ.

And my argument for this stance is simple. The movie plays like an extended sitcom. Great sitcoms like Seinfeld and Cheers know when to quit. Most sitcoms are thirty minutes and are too long at that. A good sitcom can sometimes last for an hour, but rarely can one last longer. Sitcoms are full of one-liners, often with the intent of sounding witty. But after thirty minutes of this, even the wittiest of one-liners seems forced, overused, and unnecessary. Hence, Ghostbusters grows tiring with this one-liner, pull-your-leg funny routine very quickly. The movie needs more than an interesting premise, blockbuster-like, campy special effects, and star talent to remove this feeling. It needs other modes of humor, other ways to provoke laughter.

So what is the plot of this blockbuster 80s film? Rather simple (as it should be). Three phantom-loving scientists are working at a New York City college until one day their rather unique but also useless research into ghoulish behavior is found too ridiculous, and so the three scientists are let go. The three "take a chance" and set up a business to exterminate ghosts. At first, business is slow, but thanks to a prehistoric beast bringing apocalypse to the world with the warnings coming by increased phantom sightings, their business quickly picks up. The three (along with a new sidekick) then are forced to save the world from ultimate doom by killing an ancient evil god once and for all. WEEEOWW!

The three scientists are Dr. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Dr. Raymond Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), and Dr. Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis). Their first customer is musician Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver), whose home happens to be the center of the ghouls' residence. Or at least her refrigerator is. Barrett's neighbor is the nerdy and clingy Louis Tully (Rick Moranis). The sidekick mentioned in the previous paragraph is Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson), who I'm wondering was included in the screenplay and film for the sole purpose of including a black person in the cast.

The funny thing about this film is that it has such talent in it. Murray, with an absolutely unforgettable performance in Caddyshack, is just a supplier of one-liners, sometimes humorous and sometimes not, in this film. Aykroyd, always one with the ability to make a person roll with laughter, never does here as he seems overshadowed by Murray in this film, and needlessly so. And Harold Ramis, playing the typical scientist, performs as if he is the most serious of the bunch. Unfortunately, Ramis is also overshadowed by Murray. Sigourney Weaver plays her character seductively in this film. Weaver adds much to this film; she seemed a bit underused to me. And Rick Moranis is grossly underused. Including such a talent as this guy without exploiting it is preposterous.

I guess the biggest disappointment with this film is that it has such talent and wastes it. So much potential and poor implementation of it. The film's attempt to be funny (and failure thereof) prevents it from me seeing the film as good camp (a guilty pleasure). There was nothing pleasing about this film. Its effects on comedy, cinema, and even the cartoon business cannot be ignored. But I have to ask why it has to come with something so ridiculously unhumorous as this.