Film

“Grab your stick. Heat ’em up! make ’em hard!”

This movie is toast

The first Ghostbusters will always be one of the most magnificent movie miracles.

Some of the greatest comedy monsters of the time (Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis and Dan Aykroyd) combined under the guidance of a hot director (Ivan Reitman, coming off Stripes and Meatballs) to merge horror, science fiction, comedy and big budget special effects. They balanced all of these elements perfectly and turned out a classic.

I was not expecting anything near the brilliance or originality of the 1984 original from Paul Feig’s reboot/remake/whatever-you-want-to-call-it entry into a movie franchise that has remained dormant since the miserable 1989 sequel Ghostbusters 2. Considering the cast that Feig assembled (Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones), I did expect to have a good time.

That didn’t happen. I was bored. Super bored. I laughed a total of two and a half times at the new Ghostbusters, not once due to anything the headlining stars did. It’s as if Feig (Bridesmaids, Spy, The Heat) figured, “Hey, I have these stars and a big budget for special effects. I don’t really need a funny script, do I? These stars can just stand in front of a camera and be funny, right?”

Perhaps they can, but not this time out. Ghostbusters is a stale facsimile of the original. If you watched those lousy preview trailers and worried that the franchise was creatively bankrupt, know that the stupid jokes in that trailer (“Ow, that’s gonna leave a mark!”) are about the best the film has to offer. It is utterly void of laughter.

I found myself really annoyed with the haters who judged this movie by those lousy trailers before they saw the completed project. Sadly, I have now joined that camp, because I really hated this movie.

The normally reliable Wiig, as the “sensible scientist,” basically stands around looking lost. Comedic

firecracker McCarthy, as the trailblazer scientist of the group, bumbles her way through her role with a smile but no material. My current favorite Saturday Night Live star, Kate McKinnon, as the brainy yet eccentric science wizard, is allowed to mug like a crack addict on an NYC subway full of inebriated, unarmed billionaires. Leslie Jones, as the street-smart member with no science chops, seems to equate volume with humor. She’s just loud. After a promising start featuring Zach Woods (Silicon Valley), Ed Begley, Jr. and a haunted house, the plot switches to a geek (Neil Casey) looking to cause a ghost apocalypse in Manhattan. He’s planting traps around the city that attract paranormal activity, perhaps because he’s lonely. The new Ghostbusters band together to conquer the geek and save the city. The ghosts are dull, fluorescent things bolstered slightly by some decent 3-D effects if you should choose the more expensive viewing route. In one of the only real compliments I can bestow upon the film, the folks putting together some of the 3-D action did a pretty good Ghostbusters job. There are moments where stuff seems to come out of the movie 12345 frame and suspend in the air in front of you. Those moments won’t make Director: Paul Feig you laugh, but they might wake you Starring: Kristen Wiig, up a little. Melissa McCarthy, Kate Andy Garcia as the New York McKinnon, Leslie Jones mayor made me laugh … once. Begley, Jr. as a paranormal enthusiast made me laugh … once. Chris Hemsworth as a brain-dead receptionist almost made me laugh once, but it was more like a chuckle. That’s it for the laugh count. Aykroyd, Murray, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts and Sigourney Weaver all make useless, remarkably lame cameos. Ramis makes an appearance as well in one of the movie’s few inspired moments. To say this is a disappointment is an understatement. So far, this summer has blown it with Spielberg, Superman, Batman, Independence Day aliens and now the Ghostbusters. Will Suicide Squad return some dignity to DC? Will Star Trek Beyond give the summer the big budget fun boost it needs? It’s probably too late, and more than likely 2016 can’t be redeemed at the cinemas. Let’s hope the movies get a lot better when it gets cold outside. Ω

1The BFG And with this, the startling run of Steven Spielberg duds continues. After delivering two of the dullest movies of his career (Lincoln, BridgeofSpies) Spielberg does the almost impossible; he makes Roald Dahl completely boring. Oscar-winner Mark Rylance delivers a motion-capture CGI performance as the central character, the Big Friendly Giant, that results in more yawns than smiles. His giant captures dreams and blows them into the sleeping residents of London. On one of his excursions, he kidnaps Sophie (Ruby Barnhill), and takes her to the land of giants, where most giants are meat eaters. Luckily, he’s a vegetarian, but he’s being bullied by a group of bad giants led by Jemaine Clement in the film’s most fun motion-capture performance. Despite a winning performance from Barnhill, a true star in the making, the film drags on and on, trying to get by on big special effects rather than an engaging story. Everything feels a little off for Spielberg. A visit to the Queen’s house, which should be bizarrely funny and subversive, winds up feeling awkward and uncomfortable. The whole movie seems to be playing it safe in Dahl land, as if it is E.T.in Dahl land, and it throws the tone completely off. It doesn’t help that John Williams rips off his own E.T.score. It never clicks. Nothing really works, yet again, for Spielberg, a director who seems to have momentarily lost his mojo.

3Central Intelligence While it doesn’t boast much along the lines of originality, this winds up being an above average action/comedy buddy movie thanks to its stars, Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart. The guys belong together. The plot feels like a bunch of parts from other movies cobbled together to make a whole. It has elements of LethalWeapon, GrossePointeBlank, JustFriendsand even a little SixteenCandles, all stitched together, albeit capably, by director Rawson Marshall Thurber (We’retheMillers). It’s a well-oiled movie Frankenstein. Johnson and Hart are a strong screen duo, with Johnson actually scoring most of the laughs. Hart, who certainly chips in on the laughs front, actually delivers one of the more well rounded, warm performances of his career. He plays Calvin, the most popular guy in high school who grows up to be humdrum. Johnson plays Bob, a former obese guy who Calvin took pity on. Bob grows up to be a rogue CIA agent who looks like the Rock. The two wind up on an adventure that, of course, eventually leads to their high school reunion.

3Finding Dory This sequel to FindingNemogoes a little darker than its predecessor. Ellen DeGeneres returns as Dory, the lovable fish with short-term memory loss. An event triggers a memory of family in her little brain, and she sets off on a journey to find her mom and dad (voiced by Diane Keaton and Eugene Levy). Pals Marlin (Albert Brooks) and Nemo (Hayden Rolence) join Dory on her quest, which culminates in an aquarium amusement park graced with voice announcements by the actual Sigourney Weaver. Dory winds up in a touch pond, in a bucket of dead fish, and swimming around in a lot of dark pipe work. In some ways, this is to FindingNemowhat TheEmpireStrikesBack was to StarWars. It’s a darker, slightly scarier chapter that still delivers on the heartwarming elements and laughs.

1Independence Day: Resurgence I enjoyed the goofy, funny, balls-out alien invasion movie that was IndependenceDay(1996). The film was dumber than a stoned golden retriever in a Harvard calculus class, but Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum and, yes, Randy Quaid made the grandiose stupidity somewhat of a blast. Two decades after the original, IndependenceDay:Resurgence finally arrives, without Smith, who probably didn’t think the check was big enough. While the original was a stupid blast, the sequel is the equivalent of a nasty two-hour alien fart. Goldblum, Bill Pullman and Brent Spiner return for alien nonsense that is fast paced yet dull, and utterly void of laughs. It’s evident in the first 10 minutes that the movie will somehow manage to be lethargic even though the editing is frantic, and lots of things are exploding. Returning director Roland Emmerich is clearly not on his disaster-epic game. It’s a wasteful effort, where camp has been replaced by total ineptitude, and the performers look lost. And, let’s face it, Liam Hemsworth is no Will Smith.

3The Secret Life of Pets A bunch of comedians lend their voices to some cartoon characters, and the results are moderately entertaining. Louis C.K. voices Max, a Jack Russell terrier who loves his master, Katie (Ellie Kemper of Unbreakable KimmySchmidt), with that undying loyalty that makes dogs so damn cool. Katie brings home a new brother for Max, a big brown shaggy dog named Duke (Eric Stonestreet), and it creates some turmoil in the household. Max and Duke eventually wind up in the hands of Animal Control, and eventually fend for themselves in the sewers of Manhattan. There they become enemies of the Flushed Pets, a group consisting of alligators, lizards, snakes and furry critters led by Snowball the Rabbit (Kevin Hart on a sound booth tear). The advertised premise for the film suggests the movie might be about what our pets do in the house when we leave home. That part of the film is out of the way early in the movie’s opening minutes. The rest of the movie is the band of pets in Max’s neighborhood trying to find him and Duke when they get lost. Some of the sequences are borderline deranged. Max and Duke wind up in a sausage factory, where they gobble down hot dogs in an almost hallucinatory scene set to Grease’s “We Go Together.” This doesn’t feel like the stuff of kids’ movies; it’s a sequence that seems as if the animators took a little LSD break, came back to their computers, and dreamt up some wild shit.

3The Shallows Blake Lively, whose best role until now was the secretary in that SNL“Potato Chip” sketch, is terrific as Nancy, a medical school dropout who goes to a secret beach in Mexico in the wake of her mother’s death. She sets out for a day of surfing and reflection in what she thinks is a completely solitary setting (with the exception of a couple of other friendly surfers). Turns out, there’s a big-assed Great White shark, and this is its territory, and no trespassers are allowed, even if they are as pretty as Blake Lively. As shark movies go, this is a good one, with decent CGI effects, a couple of tense shark attacks, and a constant level of terror that never lets up. The only thing really keeping this from being “very good” rather than “nice and good” is the ending, which made me laugh a laugh I shouldn’t have laughed.

4Swiss Army Man Like the dead corpse at its center, this film is a multipurpose entity. It can be a lot of different things to the viewer. It can be a story about the wild things starvation and desperation can do to the brain, and the strange movies that play in your head when you are losing it. It can be a story about how a deranged stalker deals with the end of his life and afterlife. It can be a story about how funny it would be if somebody’s farts could propel him like a jet ski across the ocean and how funny it would be if his erect dick were a compass. I’ve made my choice what this movie is about, but you could walk away from it thinking something completely different. As Hank, Paul Dano gets yet another careerdefining, nutty role. He’s seemingly stranded on a desert island, at the end of his rope, literally. Just before killing himself, a corpse (Daniel Radcliffe) washes up on the beach, and starts farting. It starts farting—a lot. Before much time has passed, Hank is riding the corpse, dubbed Manny, across the ocean as its farts provide jet propulsion. Hank, with the arrival of his new friend, decides suicide is a drag, and takes Manny along with him on a trek through the forest to find civilization. Manny eventually starts having conversations with Hank. Sound weird? It is. It’s also strangely beautiful, deeper and richer than most movies with this many farts in it.