Ghostbusters Review Roundup

Sony screened the new, female-driven Ghostbusters to the press last week, and now, the first wave of reviews are coming in. For the most part, they are fairly positive. Currently, with 41 reviews posted on Rotten Tomatoes, Ghostbusters has a 76% fresh rating. The general consensus is that the main cast does a wonderful job of creating fully-formed and entertaining characters; however, the film apparently suffers from an unsatisfying third-act and a need to score nostalgia points with fans of the original.

William Bibbiani of Crave Online: "The new Ghostbusters is a smart and exciting comedy, and a solid new entry into the classic series. Paul Feig's film changes just enough about the original concept to make his Ghostbusters feel new, but its heart is the same. It is still a film about blue collar heroes, doing great things because that's just what they do, whether or not they get any respect for it. It's a film for anybody who has ever been marginalized for pursuing their passions, and been told that they were making a mistake for doing so. And that's pretty wonderful."

David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter: "Short on both humor and tension, the spook encounters are rote collisions with vaporous CG specters that escalate into an uninvolving supernatural cataclysm unleashed upon New York's Times Square. It's all busy-ness, noise and chaos, with zero thrills and very little sustainable comic buoyancy."

Peter Debruge of Variety says the new Ghostbusters "suffers from a disappointingly strong case of déjà vu. While both funnier and scarier than Ivan Reitman's 1984 original, this otherwise over-familiar remake from Bridesmaids director Paul Feig doesn't do nearly enough to innovate on what has come before, even going so far as to conjure most of the earlier film's cast (including Slimer and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man) in cameos that undercut the new film's chemistry."

Mike Ryan of Uproxx: "But, whatever, when Ghostbusters focuses on the team and the characters (always Feig's strength), it flourishes. It's only when it gets bogged down in CGI ghosts that, sometimes, it starts to drag. But, this is 2016 and a summer action movie needs to keep moving."

Drew McWeeny of HitFix: "My favorite performance in the film is, easily, Kate McKinnon as Holtzmann. She's absolutely exceptional here, and I feel like I only saw about half of what she did. Whether she's the focus of a scene or lurking at the edge of the frame, she is constantly stealing scenes from almost everyone. I say almost because Chris Hemsworth hasn't worked so hard to steal an entire movie since he first burst on the scene in 2009's Star Trek reboot."

Jen Yamato of The Daily Beast: "Ghostbusters die-hards might disagree, but the remake is conceived with more complex aims than the first two films. The greatest upside is a new generation of youngsters now have a Ghostbusters movie of their own, with a disparate team of adult women to idolize, that holds dear the rules and tone and sweet core of the original films."

Terri Schwartz of IGN: "It's frankly disappointing that the new Ghostbusters movie doesn't work as well as it had the potential to. The film is conscious of the criticisms and vitriol that has already been leveled against it and that is steeped into its DNA, all the way to the mid-credits ending."

Robert Abele of The Wrap: "For a movie slimed well in advance of anyone actually seeing it, the new female-driven Ghostbusters wins by sheer dint of being exceedingly good-natured and skillfully made, having the sharp sense to tickle us into submission before the ubiquitous hammer of CGI comes down."

Chris Nashawaty of EW: "But with a cast as daring and quick as this one, Ghostbusters is too mild and plays it too safe. Somewhere, I bet, there's an R-rated director's cut of the movie where these women really let it rip. I want to see that movie."

Rodrigo Perez of The Playlist: "Much of this failure stems not from the acting, but from the film's director and co-writer Paul Feig. His direction appears to be: let the talented comediennes improvise as much as they want and stitch the core plot together afterward. And it's not like the original Ghostbusters had much insight into the human condition, but it was idiosyncratic and funny, not to mention entertainingly offbeat, a charming little oddball of a film. As essentially a beat-for-beat remake of the original, 2016's version of Ghostbusters literally has nothing to add, aside from new jokes, to a forgettable movie that never dares to take risks."

Ghostbusters makes its long-awaited return, rebooted with a cast of hilarious new characters. Thirty years after the beloved original franchise took the world by storm, director Paul Feig brings his fresh take to the supernatural comedy, joined by some of the funniest actors working today – Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, and Chris Hemsworth. This summer, they're here to save the world!

The film is directed by Paul Feig (The Heat, Bridesmaids), written by Feig and Katie Dippold, and produced by Ivan Reitman and Amy Pascal. Feig, Jessie Henderson, Tom Pollock, Joe Medjuck, Ali Bell, Michele Imperato Stabile, and Dan Aykroyd are its executive producers. The cast features Melissa McCarthy (Tammy), Kristen Wiig (Saturday Night Live), Kate McKinnon (Saturday Night Live), Leslie Jones (Saturday Night Live), Charles Dance (Game of Thrones), Michael Kenneth Williams (Boardwalk Empire), Neil Casey (Adult Beginners), Elizabeth Perkins (Big), and Chris Hemsworth (Thor). The film will feature cameos from Bill Murray (Groundhog Day), Dan Aykroyd (Spies Like Us), Sigourney Weaver (Alien), Ernie Hudson (The Crow), Annie Potts (Designing Women), and Ozzy Osbourne.

Ghostbusters is due in theaters July 15, 2016.