Transcript
Speaker: Hey, listeners, welcome back.
Speaker: We are going to talk today about Ghostbusters, or depending on where you view this or what you see, sometimes I also see it, Ghostbusters answer the call.
Speaker: We're talking about the 2016 all-female-led reboot of the property that was critically
Speaker: mangled uh when it first came out not very well liked um you know with other movies has time been kind to this one has and we've been able to look back and go oh this isn't all that bad um and and i'll say for me i'll get this out of the way here rob before i let you jump in um
Speaker: This is still actually a very bad movie, and I'm going to put this out there now for any listeners.
Speaker: I don't want to hear bull crap about the fact that this movie gets a bad rap because it's an all female cast and, Oh my God, you guys are misogynistic.
Speaker: And, you know, Leslie Jones said that, and you know, it's, it was okay for her to go on and be like, Oh, it's because, you know, men don't want to see an all female cast and, you know, they don't like strong female leads.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: Give me, I'm sorry.
Speaker: Give me a break.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: There's plenty of movies, you know, Terminator 2.
Speaker: Yes, that was Arnold.
Speaker: But Linda, Linda Hamilton, you know, is a protagonist that people will talk about.
Speaker: Ripley is someone who people still continue to talk about.
Speaker: You look at the Oceans 8 movie, which is an all female version of those ocean movies, and it was spectacular.
Speaker: Love that movie.
Speaker: I don't care if it's an all-female cast.
Speaker: I don't care if it's an all-male cast.
Speaker: I don't care what the cast is.
Speaker: If it's a good movie, I'll enjoy it.
Speaker: And if it's a bad movie, I won't enjoy it.
Speaker: And there are plenty of reasons why this is a bad movie that has nothing to do with the female cast.
Speaker: If you want to be upset...
Speaker: Be upset because every one of your characters, no matter how hard they try, you're all the same in this movie.
Speaker: When you really look at this movie and how it breaks down and everything it does, you're all the same.
Speaker: You're all one note.
Speaker: You're all, you know what's comedy is us being loud.
Speaker: That's loud.
Speaker: Leslie Jones character.
Speaker: Go ahead.
Speaker: Leslie Jones character wants to yell because it's funny.
Speaker: It's funny.
Speaker: That's how you're funny is being loud.
Speaker: Kate McKinnon's character.
Speaker: is loud and funny.
Speaker: Melissa McCarthy, who I actually like a lot.
Speaker: I've liked her in a ton of movies.
Speaker: Spy is one of my favorite movies, and she's the freaking lead, and I love her in it.
Speaker: I think she's great.
Speaker: This is her being a character of Melissa McCarthy because her comedy is being loud, saying something ridiculous, and falling.
Speaker: That's not comedy.
Speaker: It's not funny.
Speaker: It happens over and over and over again.
Speaker: Every one of these characters does it.
Speaker: And it, and I'll say some good things about this movie.
Speaker: I think there's some good ideas, but man,
Speaker: This is terrible.
Speaker: And this is the first time that you watched it.
Speaker: So I'll let you go.
Speaker: This was the first time that I'd watched it.
Speaker: Hard to disagree with anything you've said so far.
Speaker: The people that like to talk about how if you say bad things about this movie, it's because of the patriarchy or it's because of misogyny.
Speaker: They like to talk about equality.
Speaker: And yes, equality is important.
Speaker: But you know what equality means?
Speaker: Like what true equality means is that women are just as capable of making shitty movies as men.
Speaker: Or starring in shitty movies.
Speaker: And by the way, here's a whole bunch of women in this movie starring in a shitty movie.
Speaker: They're just as capable.
Speaker: That's what true equality is, is that you can look at a female-led movie and give it just the same level of criticism as you would...
Speaker: A male starred movie.
Speaker: And it's funny because you only hear misogyny being the reason why a female led movie doesn't do well at the box officer, doesn't get rated well, when the movie actually sucks.
Speaker: You heard this about the second Wonder Woman movie.
Speaker: They came out and said it was all because of misogyny that nobody saw.
Speaker: Well, it came out in the middle of the pandemic, but the reason it got bad reviews was because of that.
Speaker: It had nothing to do with the fact that it was a terrible movie.
Speaker: The first one did very well.
Speaker: The first one is widely regarded as good, so the misogyny didn't hurt the first one.
Speaker: It only hurt the bad movie.
Speaker: Last time I checked, Barbie made $17 septillion last summer.
Speaker: I'm pretty sure misogyny didn't hurt that movie at all.
Speaker: It's that word only comes out to describe.
Speaker: And you know who gives that movie a ton of great reviews?
Speaker: Men.
Speaker: Men.
Speaker: Yeah, I went and saw that movie.
Speaker: I thought it was great.
Speaker: I thought it missed the mark on a couple of points and hit them too late.
Speaker: I absolutely love that movie.
Speaker: I think that movie is fantastic.
Speaker: I've heard the same.
Speaker: I haven't had a chance to watch it myself yet and not because I have anything against it.
Speaker: But I my wife and my oldest daughter went to see it at the same time that my twins and I went to see Spider-Man across the Spider-Verse, which was a movie I was actually very excited about.
Speaker: So it wasn't that I didn't want to see it.
Speaker: I just haven't really had the occasion to it.
Speaker: It only comes out when the movie actually isn't any good.
Speaker: And, and that's, that's not equality.
Speaker: Equality is being able to analyze a piece of art for its own merit, regardless of who made it or what any specifications are.
Speaker: And, and that's what we're going to do, Matt.
Speaker: We're going to, we're going to evaluate this piece of art for its own merit of what it is successful at, what it is not successful at.
Speaker: And we will, we will analyze, we will analyze this.
Speaker: So we, we picked this, this was on the calendar.
Speaker: I looked up where it was streaming and certainly I'd heard a lot about this, but I was committed to coming into this project with an open mind.
Speaker: I wanted to just see this for what it was, give it my honest opinion.
Speaker: I didn't want to have preconceived ideas coming into it, regardless of everything I'd heard about it.
Speaker: But I always am skeptical anytime I look for something that's streaming and it's on a free streaming service.
Speaker: So this is on free V right now.
Speaker: You don't have to pay anything for it.
Speaker: I'm just, yeah, there's some good stuff that you can find on like to be in some of those, but mostly, mostly if a movie is worth watching, it's not, it's behind a paywall.
Speaker: In most cases, they're not usually putting top notch stuff.
Speaker: Now that being said, John wick, I think was, was it on to be or was it on another one?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So like that already is kind of throwing some of my point out.
Speaker: There's a couple of bangers here and there, but I was already skeptical.
Speaker: 13 minutes into the movie and I already can't stand any of these characters.
Speaker: I had not laughed once or even smiled.
Speaker: 27 minutes in was when the first time I laughed.
Speaker: And it's the scene where they're looking at the firehouse and the realtor says 21,000 a month.
Speaker: And she immediately turns to her and says, burn in hell.
Speaker: And that was a legitimately funny part of this movie.
Speaker: It was the first time I laughed.
Speaker: It might have been the last time I laughed.
Speaker: I couldn't help but compare this to another extremely terrible movie that you forced me to watch because you're a bad friend.
Speaker: Last summer, I think it was, we watched the Super Mario Brothers movie.
Speaker: And I remember making the comment that you can kind of like recognize the structure of a script where like a joke is supposed to be like this is a setup or something that is supposed to be funny, but it's just not.
Speaker: And there were many times in this movie I was so confused by by what was happening.
Speaker: I didn't even necessarily recognize the setup to something that was supposed to be funny.
Speaker: Like it was it was so not funny.
Speaker: They didn't even set it up as something that was supposed to be funny.
Speaker: Yeah, no, and that's, you know, that is one of many problems with this movie.
Speaker: But, you know, this movie, to me, suffers from the one common trope.
Speaker: In all bad movies.
Speaker: Is that they want you to pay attention so much.
Speaker: Because they're using all of these words to describe everything that's going on.
Speaker: But everything that happens in the movie.
Speaker: Even when they are trying to set something up as a joke.
Speaker: Or this is supposed to be like, oh, this is funny.
Speaker: Because of the fact that nothing else is really going on or they make it a point to focus on it, it stops you and it forces you to go, okay, what's actually going on here?
Speaker: And this might sound silly, but it's the simple fact that they think the wonton bit in this movie is funny.
Speaker: They think that's hysterical.
Speaker: It's not.
Speaker: And it's not.
Speaker: And it's not for the simple fact of, again, I know movies are fake.
Speaker: Unless, oh, they're based off a true story.
Speaker: And even then, there's creative liberties with those movies.
Speaker: You know, you still get some extra things in there.
Speaker: But when you're forced to stop and think about these things, number one...
Speaker: Like, a place like that would not be in business.
Speaker: So it's not funny.
Speaker: It's only funny when you're saying, okay, I could believe that happening.
Speaker: Like, you're not consistently showing up somewhere and giving them...
Speaker: No wontons and wonton soup or something that would be a health violation.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because so that's the same problem I have with Chris Hemsworth character.
Speaker: They referred him as the himbo throughout this.
Speaker: That guy would be an assisted living.
Speaker: His like that man, that character is not well like he would not.
Speaker: And I am not.
Speaker: He can't survive on his own.
Speaker: No, I'm not shaming here.
Speaker: It's just the way that his character is presented.
Speaker: His parents would have put, he would have a caretaker.
Speaker: He wouldn't be out looking for work.
Speaker: He'd be collecting SSI.
Speaker: And in New York City, that guy on the street would be beat up.
Speaker: Like that guy traveling on his own at night or walking like with his mental disability that he clearly has in this movie.
Speaker: That guy would be dead in the city.
Speaker: I hate every single scene with him in it.
Speaker: He is, his character is so bad.
Speaker: It's literally like Jar Jar Binks level of hatred that I have for his character because it's so unrealistic.
Speaker: It doesn't make any sense that this character could survive or exist.
Speaker: It's, it's also, it's, it's,
Speaker: you're pointing out your, is it supposed to be funny?
Speaker: Cause again, I said this about wonder woman 84 with that situation that the movie takes, you know, with one of the situations that happens in that movie is roles reversed.
Speaker: Everybody would be up in arms that a female secretary character was produced in that light.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's not like in the original Ghostbusters.
Speaker: They didn't present her like that.
Speaker: She wasn't there to be, you know, comedy entertainment or like a sexual object.
Speaker: She really wasn't.
Speaker: Like, yeah, she or demeaned for her lack of intelligence.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Or demeaned like she wasn't at all.
Speaker: But the same thing that even like Leslie Jones talked about when like people didn't like this movie is something that you put in the movie like you sat there and.
Speaker: You continually like, I believe in this movie, they actually say like, he's dumb.
Speaker: Like the, the, the characters openly talk about how he's dumb and they're like, Oh, it's a good thing that you're good looking.
Speaker: Like, so stop for a second and imagine that it's not,
Speaker: you know, traditionally handsome Chris Hemsworth playing this character.
Speaker: Imagine it's like Jonah Hill pre glow up.
Speaker: Imagine it's like the fat version of Jonah Hill with like the big, like curly Afro looking kind of look.
Speaker: Imagine it's him.
Speaker: It feels like Chris.
Speaker: It feels incredibly cruel.
Speaker: You would never put that scene in a movie.
Speaker: When he first comes in and Aaron is introducing herself to him, this scene is so terrible.
Speaker: It's so bad.
Speaker: Then they have the scene where he's talking about my cat is Mike hat.
Speaker: That's supposed to be a joke.
Speaker: That scene is supposed to be funny.
Speaker: What the hell is this?
Speaker: It is unspeakably terrible.
Speaker: There's nothing...
Speaker: Remotely redeeming about that scene.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And you know, I'll, I'll say you, you said about 27 minutes in is when you got your first laugh.
Speaker: Um, yeah, I actually stopped it and looked at the timestamp.
Speaker: I needed to know.
Speaker: I might've gotten mine a little bit sooner because I did actually think, um, when they first, which, Oh God, like it forces me to talk about, um,
Speaker: It forces me to talk about this part of it, too.
Speaker: But when Kristen Wiig's character, Aaron Gilbert, goes to talk to Abby, who is Melissa McCarthy's character, about the book being for sale on Amazon, which I'm sorry...
Speaker: She didn't just put this book up for sale.
Speaker: She hasn't.
Speaker: There's no way that this book just recently went up.
Speaker: And there's no way that this school just found out about this or that she just found out about this.
Speaker: Like you're up for tenure.
Speaker: That doesn't happen after.
Speaker: Six months in a college.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Am I wrong?
Speaker: The whole intro.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just, it's, when you stop and ask the question, why is this happening?
Speaker: Does this make sense?
Speaker: The answer is no.
Speaker: No, even the, and like you said, the intro, the intro doesn't make sense because why is that character still alive?
Speaker: Because it looks like he gets attacked by the ghost and then he's just like, he's fine.
Speaker: Unless I'm forgetting something about the movie, he's not possessed.
Speaker: He has nothing to do further with the movie after they walk into that house.
Speaker: Am I wrong?
Speaker: Did he show up again?
Speaker: Yeah, the tour guide.
Speaker: Yeah, he shows up a couple of times.
Speaker: When?
Speaker: I must have missed him.
Speaker: This is how I must have.
Speaker: Was he possessed at all, though?
Speaker: I don't think so.
Speaker: I don't think so, but that's what I mean.
Speaker: Like, I don't think he's possessed by a ghost.
Speaker: So like, why does he go back to the house?
Speaker: Why does he like the way that they open that movie with him getting attacked and screaming?
Speaker: It's like, okay, that maybe this is a little different.
Speaker: They're going like, okay, like, damn, like these ghosts are not kidding around.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But then he just seems to be kind of fine.
Speaker: And then, you know, there's a joke.
Speaker: He's been dead for 30 years.
Speaker: Well, then who's this?
Speaker: Oh, well, that's, you know, John Marks Jr. Like, oh, that's not funny.
Speaker: It's not.
Speaker: You know who they were freaking talking about.
Speaker: You know who they were talking about.
Speaker: This movie only makes sense if you believe it exists in a world parallel to ours where the rules are different, where things just operate differently.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it almost actually makes sense as like a multiverse kind of saga because we have cameos from the original cast.
Speaker: And, you know, who exist as other people in this world.
Speaker: So clearly this version of the world just works differently where jokes are, are different.
Speaker: The humor works differently.
Speaker: Reality works differently.
Speaker: I mentioned, you know, there was, there's some throwbacks to the, the origin series with the first one we really get is the spray painted throwback logo.
Speaker: And, and it's kind of set up to be like kind of a big deal that they show you the logo and,
Speaker: Shortly after that, there's a Bill Murray cameo.
Speaker: Pretty much all the major cast have a cameo at some point in this movie.
Speaker: And honestly, like...
Speaker: I appreciate that the original cast wanted to kind of do that as a passing of the torch or something like that.
Speaker: See it however you want to see it.
Speaker: You know, they did what they could to try to give this movie a shot.
Speaker: But all it really did for me, and I don't know if this was like this for you, but all it really did for me was just remind me that I'm not watching
Speaker: either of those original movies that were actually really good.
Speaker: And that it just reminded me that I would much be, I would much rather be watching those movies and I would laugh more and be much happier if I was watching those movies instead of this one.
Speaker: Every time they came on, I was just like, oh, that's sad that you got dragged into this mess.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, you know, the funny thing is, too, and it's like, I just kind of laugh because I'm watching this movie and I don't know if you know this, if you noticed it, because maybe you weren't paying attention that hard.
Speaker: But did you notice that when they're in the subway?
Speaker: And they're like, excuse me, sir.
Speaker: Did you see any ghosts around here?
Speaker: He's like, oh, you know what?
Speaker: It looked.
Speaker: Don't let him.
Speaker: Don't let him spray paint on the wall.
Speaker: Don't do that, sir.
Speaker: You know, again, that's supposed to be funny.
Speaker: Yeah, it's supposed to be funny.
Speaker: And it's just stupid.
Speaker: But did you notice he never, ever, ever, ever changes his can of spray paint?
Speaker: So how does he make the ghost and the red X through it?
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: He never changes his can of spray paint.
Speaker: You always can see his arm spraying.
Speaker: He never changes the can ever.
Speaker: It's the multiverse.
Speaker: And he started that logo from the beginning.
Speaker: Yeah, he never he like they don't even care about that.
Speaker: Like they can't eat like it's it's stupid little things like that that really one tick me off.
Speaker: But two.
Speaker: It's.
Speaker: if there is anything, I will say that maybe the star of this movie, as much as I think she's, I think maybe Kate McKinnon is the star of this movie.
Speaker: I think her character's just kind of quirky enough to kind of work.
Speaker: And there's some things that she does where I'm like, okay, you know, that's fine.
Speaker: But again, it's the,
Speaker: It's everything that she talks about is just an excuse for someone to be loud and repeat what she just said because they're like, oh, my God, it's crazy that you would do that.
Speaker: Why would you put nuclear reactors on top of the car?
Speaker: Like she just she's a whole exposition dump for people to get loud because they think it's funny being loud, reacting to what she said.
Speaker: I would say of the four of them, she's the character that I find the most interesting and probably works the best out of the four of them.
Speaker: And that's, and that's probably being generous to say that any of them work well.
Speaker: Um, I think there was some ideas that had they been explored differently, could have made that character work really well.
Speaker: There was, there was things there, um,
Speaker: that I just don't think made it all the way out.
Speaker: And what, what kind of occurs to me is that this movie is what happens when you make an entire finished film out of deleted scenes that weren't good enough to make the actual film.
Speaker: Like if you took all the good scenes out and replace them with just the ones like, oh, you know what?
Speaker: On paper, I thought this would work.
Speaker: Or the day we shot it, we must have just been in a weird mood that we thought this would be okay.
Speaker: And it just didn't work out.
Speaker: So you just, you know, the stuff you cut out of the movie, if you took all of that and made a movie out of it, this is kind of what happens because there's not really...
Speaker: stuff that works.
Speaker: It's all the stuff that you would have cut to keep the better stuff.
Speaker: This is kind of like the justice league compared to the Snyder cut.
Speaker: Like you, you left all that behind and use this to make your movie and called this a finished product.
Speaker: Like that's, that was kind of what I got like three quarters of the way into this movie.
Speaker: I had this epiphany.
Speaker: And when I say three quarters of the way into this movie, I'm,
Speaker: I actually had to do two sittings of this because about an hour in, I really felt compelled to just turn this off and go do something else because I was like, I was not enjoying myself that much that I literally...
Speaker: Pause the movie.
Speaker: I got up from where I was sitting.
Speaker: I went to the kitchen.
Speaker: I poured a drink.
Speaker: I did a couple other things.
Speaker: I scrolled social media.
Speaker: I laughed at a couple of things I saw.
Speaker: And then I worked up the courage to turn this movie back on like that.
Speaker: I Matt, I can't remember something we've reviewed.
Speaker: that I've not been able to finish in one sitting for anything other than time reasons, like just if I'm busy or whatever.
Speaker: But I literally was like, this is so bad.
Speaker: I have to take a break from this.
Speaker: And again, we've, you know, I've forced you to watch some pretty bad things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But again, it's because this, the problem is, again, it's one of those things when like,
Speaker: And maybe this sounds terrible, but when you're embarrassed for somebody, but they don't know that they should be embarrassed because of their behavior.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, that's what this movie feels like, because again, I,
Speaker: I'm sure there's a lot of great intention in this movie.
Speaker: And again, I've Leslie Jones.
Speaker: I don't really know of too much else with her in, but I like Kristen Wiig.
Speaker: I thought she was great in Bridesmaids.
Speaker: I like Melissa McCarthy.
Speaker: I like Chris Hemsworth, Kate McKinnon.
Speaker: Yes, I've seen her do good things like I have.
Speaker: But this is just, you know, all of them together.
Speaker: They don't have a ton of chemistry.
Speaker: There's not a lot going.
Speaker: I didn't find the story all that particularly interesting.
Speaker: Now, what I will say is I'll get just get this point out of the way because it was what I was trying to make about the opening is when Aaron goes to visit Abby and like take the book down.
Speaker: And she's like, if you go to this house with us, like I'll take the book, like I'll take the book down or whatever.
Speaker: It's already out there.
Speaker: People will find out about it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But I did actually get a pretty good laugh because I thought that part was actually acted really well.
Speaker: It felt supernatural when she was like, come on, let's go.
Speaker: And she's like, I'm not going with you.
Speaker: She's like, oh, my God, you weren't invited.
Speaker: I just need you to close the door.
Speaker: Like, I just need you to get out so I can close the door.
Speaker: I actually kind of laughed at that.
Speaker: I thought Melissa McCarthy's timing on that.
Speaker: was perfect.
Speaker: Like I thought they, they allowed that to actually work pretty well.
Speaker: Um, so I did get a really good, I did get a really good chuckle out of that scene.
Speaker: So I get a laugh quicker than you did.
Speaker: Um, but if there's, if there's something I'm going to give this movie credit for that, I think maybe we'll agree on, um,
Speaker: maybe, is I do think, as opposed to Ghostbusters 2, and tip my hand a little bit, even Afterlife, I think this did a good job
Speaker: Of introducing some new things.
Speaker: I thought some of the weapons that they introduced were actually cool ideas.
Speaker: And in another movie, that would have been cooler.
Speaker: I do think their bombs and everything.
Speaker: I think those are cool.
Speaker: I like how they expanded the ghost.
Speaker: I do like the color palette for the most part.
Speaker: I think this movie's.
Speaker: Kind of well shot.
Speaker: Towards the end.
Speaker: There is some really.
Speaker: Really hideous.
Speaker: Green screen work.
Speaker: Where you can tell they're standing against a computer background.
Speaker: Um.
Speaker: And it's not even close.
Speaker: There are some horrible shots at the end.
Speaker: I don't think this is a I don't think this is a badly filmed movie.
Speaker: I think there's some pretty good shots in here.
Speaker: And I do appreciate the new additions to Ghostbusting Weapons that this movie came up with.
Speaker: I think they do a little bit better job than the other movies of kind of expanding a little bit and adding some things.
Speaker: Overall, I do like the design of the proton packs and the ghost trap.
Speaker: Those are legitimately cool.
Speaker: I will also say that there are times where some of the VFX are clever and well done.
Speaker: Other times it looks awful.
Speaker: But there's, there's a couple of times where some of the special effects I thought were pretty effective and worked well.
Speaker: Um, again, there were some ideas here that could have worked if, if taken, if other decisions were made, I think there's, there's some things that could have been really fun about this.
Speaker: But in general, the characters are unlikable.
Speaker: The dialogue is really bad.
Speaker: I've got three different lines, Matt, that I wrote down verbatim, and I'd like to share them at this point.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I can only think of soup.
Speaker: That was a real line from this that was supposed to be funny, and it's terrible.
Speaker: In the climax, there is a line that
Speaker: that Melissa McCarthy's character, Abby, says, I lost my glasses.
Speaker: Oh, wait, they're in my hand.
Speaker: I'm going to read that again.
Speaker: I lost my glasses.
Speaker: Oh, wait, they're in my hand.
Speaker: This is a real piece of dialogue from the climax of this movie.
Speaker: That was something that a screenwriter wrote
Speaker: handed it to a director who said, yup, who handed that to an actor who repeated it on screen.
Speaker: Professionals filmed it.
Speaker: Editors looked at it and said, yup, keep that in.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Another line.
Speaker: Come get your virginity out of the lost and found.
Speaker: What does that even mean?
Speaker: What does that mean?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's supposed to be a sick burn.
Speaker: It's going to be like a girl burn, you know, like the girl says it to a guy to make fun of him.
Speaker: And it's supposed to be like a girl burn.
Speaker: What does that mean?
Speaker: Yeah, because wouldn't that be a double negative, though?
Speaker: Because if you lost your virginity and it's in the lost and found, the burn is supposed to be that you're still a virgin.
Speaker: But if you lost it, that means you're not a virgin anymore.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You've had the coitus.
Speaker: So are they saying like, so are they shaming the person and saying they should still be a virgin?
Speaker: So come get it so you can put it back in your body?
Speaker: That's my point.
Speaker: And that's where for people who want to say, oh, well, you're just a bunch of men sitting in your basements, you know, talking about, you know, being misogynist, talking about a girl movie can't be good.
Speaker: Like, no, like I wanted this movie to be good.
Speaker: These are legitimate reasons why I think and you also think.
Speaker: that it is a failure on almost every single level.
Speaker: This movie is so bad that I could use it as punishment for when my kids misbehave.
Speaker: Like most kids that are growing up in our modern 21st century, they love their gadgets, they love their electronics, they love TV, their tablets, their iPhones, and something like that.
Speaker: And it's very common for parents of our generation to use taking those objects away from them as punishment, much in the same way that
Speaker: that my parents took away my brother and my Nintendo privileges when we misbehaved or whatever.
Speaker: I could actually say, all right, kids, you lose all of your privileges.
Speaker: You can't watch any TV.
Speaker: You can't play any video games.
Speaker: The only thing you're allowed to watch is this movie.
Speaker: I could actually use this as punishment on them because it is that bad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like there really is.
Speaker: Again, the other thing, the main one of the other things, the main villain, this guy, again, I know, but.
Speaker: There is no way that you've been going this long.
Speaker: Collecting all of this stuff, getting prepared for this.
Speaker: Because you know the way that this guy is... When we're introduced and this guy is talking the way that he is... Oh, when the fourth cataclysm comes, you'll be one of the last to go or you'll last the longest.
Speaker: He's been talking to people like that forever.
Speaker: His name is Rowan North in the movie.
Speaker: Neil Casey is the actor.
Speaker: This guy would be somebody would report this guy for suspicious behavior somewhere.
Speaker: He'd be freaking locked up.
Speaker: Yeah, he'd be locked up like these things just don't make sense.
Speaker: That's the problem.
Speaker: And again, one of the things about.
Speaker: Ghostbusters was.
Speaker: Okay, it's about freaking ghosts.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: Regardless if you believe in it or not.
Speaker: I'm sure some people who are listening to this believe in ghosts.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: I'm not here to talk about that either way.
Speaker: But at least the first Ghostbusters and even the second one a little bit.
Speaker: I think the second one's more just kind of, eh, I enjoy the cast, so whatever.
Speaker: It felt at least believable in that world that you're watching.
Speaker: They believed it.
Speaker: We believe that they believe.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: These these characters, again, are characters in this universe.
Speaker: This isn't real.
Speaker: People would not be able.
Speaker: And yes, maybe for a minute, but the amount of these kind of people would not be able to act like this in real life without being behind bars or locked in an insane asylum.
Speaker: Yeah, they'd have a caseworker assigned to them.
Speaker: Kevin's character would not be able to get this kind of job.
Speaker: He would have somebody with him 24-7.
Speaker: He doesn't even know what a phone is.
Speaker: Oh, I can't, boss.
Speaker: Phone's in the fish tank.
Speaker: That's a real line, yes.
Speaker: Like, no, the one in front of you.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: And that's supposed to be passed off as humor, by the way.
Speaker: Yeah, it's...
Speaker: Like you being unable to perform basic life functions is supposed to be funny.
Speaker: Like we're supposed to, you know, we're supposed to laugh at somebody.
Speaker: And this is where I'm like, you guys are missing the mark and you're being incredibly hypocritical here because we're supposed to laugh at somebody who in all intents purposes.
Speaker: And again, I'm not saying this is shaming.
Speaker: We're supposed to be laughing at a character that is mentally challenged.
Speaker: We're supposed to be laughing at him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which is not funny.
Speaker: Like, but that's what you want us to do.
Speaker: You want us to laugh at somebody that's mentally challenged.
Speaker: But in the real world, if somebody did that, you would call them out on that crap and say, what is your problem?
Speaker: You're a horrible human being.
Speaker: Yeah, so for all of the criticism you'll get as a misogynist, that's actually ableist humor.
Speaker: You know, that's what they call it.
Speaker: Making fun of somebody's disabilities.
Speaker: Yeah, and I just... I don't get it.
Speaker: The big ending with a cop dance-off is just... The ending... And again, you don't feel anything.
Speaker: And you know what?
Speaker: Listen, if you're...
Speaker: listening to this right now, and you like this movie, I will again, will always say, I am happy for you.
Speaker: I'm happy for you.
Speaker: I'm glad that you enjoyed this movie.
Speaker: I really am.
Speaker: But the ending, I don't care that Abby and Aaron, oh, I jumped in the portal for you, which again, makes no sense that she was actually able to save her.
Speaker: None.
Speaker: There's no way that would have happened.
Speaker: Like what?
Speaker: Like, not that she wouldn't have jumped in for.
Speaker: She wouldn't have gotten to her in time.
Speaker: And you can tell she wouldn't have pulled her out in time.
Speaker: They would have actually both been stuck.
Speaker: And there's no way the other girls would have grabbed that rope and pulled them back in.
Speaker: The cut between those two scenes is horrendous.
Speaker: But it's just a bad ending.
Speaker: You know, it's it's typical around this time.
Speaker: Everything had to have the sky portal.
Speaker: Absolutely everything.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Another Sky Portal ending.
Speaker: But I just don't feel anything like, oh, you came back for me.
Speaker: And it's like, I didn't feel that was earned.
Speaker: No, I didn't feel it was earned either.
Speaker: I just I don't feel like this is.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't feel like this was a team.
Speaker: The ending is very distracting because, again, that's where some of the worst shots in the movie are.
Speaker: And you're like, whoa, like your eyes get taken out of it because the shots are so bad.
Speaker: So you can't really focus.
Speaker: And then it's it's poorly edited at the end.
Speaker: Like, it's really weird, like almost like.
Speaker: the ending was cut together.
Speaker: Like I almost believe your theory on this is a whole bunch of random scenes that they just chopped together for like, I would believe that at the ending, because the way that the ending is edited is really bad compared to the rest of the movie.
Speaker: There's a lot of establishing shots that don't seem to connect to the next scene.
Speaker: And where the characters are in relation to each other or what was previously happening.
Speaker: There's a lot of that in this last like 25 minutes.
Speaker: You know what they do have towards the end of this that does link it to the first two Ghostbusters films is once again, all the all government officials are denying the existence of ghosts in this movie, despite the fact that.
Speaker: potentially millions of people have seen otherwise.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just like, Oh God, the worst part of the first two movies, they, they kept here too.
Speaker: Um, and then, uh, did you realize, I don't know if you knew this, but that you, that you were able to stomach it long enough.
Speaker: Did you realize there was a post credit scene for this movie?
Speaker: What?
Speaker: There was a post-credit scene for this movie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And in this post-credit scene, there was some of that recording that they'd had earlier.
Speaker: And Leslie Jones' character, Patty, is listening to it.
Speaker: And she says she hears the word Zool.
Speaker: And I just was like, I wanted to take the beverage canister that I had in my hand at the time and just throw it at my TV.
Speaker: And just, I wanted to just be like, get the hell out of here.
Speaker: Like, just stop.
Speaker: Like, just like, I wanted to roll up a newspaper and smack this movie on its hypothetical nose and just go, no, like, wow.
Speaker: Like stop already.
Speaker: Like you don't, you don't get to do that.
Speaker: Like they, but,
Speaker: you've had all these characters and cameos and, and other things and callbacks to the original.
Speaker: And it's just like, you're, you're a terrible movie.
Speaker: You don't get to try to like siphon off what we liked about the first one.
Speaker: You don't get to just absorb all of that into your movie and, and, and hope that we're going to care about this because your movie isn't good enough on its own to stand.
Speaker: Yeah, it is.
Speaker: You know, I mean, it was a critical box office failure.
Speaker: You know, and again, there's there's things that had happened, you know, where there was, you know, again, there was negativity and there was things that were.
Speaker: Thrown at some of these actresses, which is never OK.
Speaker: It's never OK to attack somebody like I am not attacking.
Speaker: you know, any of these people publicly.
Speaker: I do think it was ridiculous that Leslie Jones came out and said, this is why, like, you know, this is why the movie failed and this is why, you know, it didn't do good is because X happened.
Speaker: I mean, it still made $229 million.
Speaker: Like that's, you know,
Speaker: It's not our fault they spent $144 million on the budget.
Speaker: Like, that's not my fault.
Speaker: Like, so, but it just, it should never get to that point.
Speaker: So I do feel bad because, again, it's, I don't think anybody goes in
Speaker: Yeah, some people do, but they know that.
Speaker: But in a movie like this, I don't think somebody goes in trying to make a bad movie.
Speaker: I don't think we're at the point yet where at this point I am convinced Sony just doesn't care and they are making bad movies just to keep the Spider-Man license.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: By the way, they've said that the reason Madam Web didn't do well is because of misogyny.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: We saw that coming a mile away.
Speaker: I already knew.
Speaker: Mile away.
Speaker: As soon as that movie was announced, I already knew it was going to bomb.
Speaker: And I already knew it was going to be blamed on misogyny as opposed to just it's just a bad movie.
Speaker: Like did Morbius bomb and get bad reviews and is not well thought of because of misogyny?
Speaker: No, it's just a bad movie.
Speaker: Movies are allowed to be bad for no other reason than it wasn't well made.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah, it was.
Speaker: Yeah, this is just something that did not work.
Speaker: And I think it's, you know.
Speaker: It tried to be different while hanging too much.
Speaker: Onto the original.
Speaker: I think had it tried to be completely its own thing, I think this could have been better.
Speaker: So I want to give the movie a little bit of credit in that I'm glad they gave the four characters unique names and did not tie them in any direct way to the original four.
Speaker: because you could have easily just renamed them or gave or given them the same last names as the original four, which I think could have been tempting to do, but I I'm glad that they tried to make this stand on its own right out of the gate there, as opposed to just like a true, like redux of, of, you know, of the original.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, I, I agree with that.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: You know, Rob, I don't have anything more besides just to give this a review.
Speaker: Do you have anything else that you had note-wise about this movie?
Speaker: I've said what I need to say about this so far.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: We're going to grab popcorn, and we're going to go to popcorn time here.
Speaker: I'll just get this out of the way.
Speaker: This movie is...
Speaker: I will give it one.
Speaker: Um, I'm going to give it one out of five, uh, strictly because again, I think some of the gadgets are pretty clever.
Speaker: I liked them.
Speaker: I thought they had good designs and, you know, it was like, Oh, that's yeah, that's, that's pretty smart.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Again, I do enjoy, for the most part, Kate McKinnon's character.
Speaker: I think she's the highlight out of this, if you can pull one out of there.
Speaker: And I like the follow-up boy cover for Ghostbusters.
Speaker: Like, I like the song that they put in this.
Speaker: So you get a little bit of credit there, too.
Speaker: But overall, this just...
Speaker: It was not a good movie.
Speaker: It was probably actually worse than I remember it.
Speaker: I don't think I would have gave it a one upon my initial thought process.
Speaker: Maybe like a two, two and a half.
Speaker: But re-watching it, yeah, this just...
Speaker: The laughs that you're supposed to have are not funny because, again, the idea of comedy in this movie is for people to just yell and be loud.
Speaker: That's supposed to be funny because you're loud.
Speaker: And it just it didn't work for me.
Speaker: Yeah, you're being a little more generous than I am.
Speaker: I'm not prepared to go Mario Brothers Zero, which was the only time I think I've given something no buckets.
Speaker: I gave the mummy half a bucket, the Dark Universe one.
Speaker: And that's kind of where I'm at with this.
Speaker: There's...
Speaker: Not a lot.
Speaker: I mean, the things that were interesting are the things that it was, you know, the, the kernel of an idea that could have developed into something else.
Speaker: Just can't simply make up for the fact that this was hard for me to get through the jokes and the humor rely on you believing that everything, you know, about how people work is, is somehow different.
Speaker: Like it's,
Speaker: They're not funny.
Speaker: And I acknowledge that perhaps this movie isn't written for me.
Speaker: But at the same time, it doesn't work.
Speaker: If I'm giving my opinion, my review of this, it doesn't work for me.
Speaker: If it works for you, awesome.
Speaker: I'm glad you found something you enjoy.
Speaker: I'm happy for you.
Speaker: I won't try to talk you out of it.
Speaker: But for me, half a bucket.
Speaker: Yeah, nothing more to say.
Speaker: We will continue our reviews of the Ghostbusters movies with a Ghostbusters afterlife, which after the failure of this movie, because this essentially was supposed to be the launching point of them getting a sequel.
Speaker: And this was going to be the direction that Ghostbusters went in.
Speaker: It did not work.
Speaker: We ended up getting Ghostbusters Afterlife instead, which has led to Frozen Empire.
Speaker: So next we will be reviewing Afterlife and see what happens when the franchise goes back to its roots, so to speak.
Speaker: And looking forward to bringing that review to you and looking forward to bringing you some of our other reviews, such as the season finale of Halo and the
Speaker: You know, Ghostbusters Frozen Empire.
Speaker: Actually, Rob, it's kind of fun.
Speaker: We're going to be back with Harrison from the basement binge to help him review Planet of the Apes, which I'm really looking forward to.
Speaker: Well, the trilogy.
Speaker: I haven't seen all of those, so it's giving me a great excuse, as podcasting often does, to visit new films or revisit something that I've been looking for an excuse to check out.
Speaker: So I'm really looking forward to that, too.
Speaker: Yeah, that'll be a lot of fun.
Speaker: So listeners, thank you very much for listening to this episode.
Speaker: Click in the show notes to find all of our links to interact with us on social media, our email where you can give us ideas for the shows, connect with Podchaser, review individual episodes, the show as a whole, give us feedback, let us know what you want to see next.
Speaker: We appreciate you listening to this review and we will see you very soon.
