Hot take: the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot wasn't actually that bad, it just had zero reason to exist

I finally watched the 2016 Ghostbusters remake last month during a night shift lull (slow ER nights, you know how it is). The cast worked hard and had good chemistry, but the whole thing felt like a cash grab pretending to be progressive. The problem is nobody asked for a remake when the original still holds up perfectly fine. Has anyone else found a remake that's technically decent but still completely unnecessary?

2 comments

2 Comments

blair_dixon2d ago

The one thing that gets me about @rileynelson's point on people making up their minds early is that the movie kind of invites that with how hard it leans into the cameos from the original cast. I mean, having Bill Murray show up as a skeptic ghost debunker guy is a cute nod, but it also reminds you every five minutes that this is just a rehash of something better. Did you ever feel like those cameos actually hurt the movie more than they helped, like they were trying to borrow nostalgia instead of standing on their own?

rileynelson2d ago

The opening 20 minutes of that movie had me actually cringing with the forced comedy bits, especially the stuff with the skinny hipster guy who felt like he wandered off a video game set. I get why people say it was a cash grab, but I thought the cast's energy was legitimately fun, like Kate McKinnon's weird engineer character actually made me laugh a few times. Compare it to other franchise remakes though, like the RoboCop one from 2014 which was dull and lifeless, this at least had some personality even if it didn't land with everyone. The problem isn't that it was unnecessary, it's that people made up their minds before the credits rolled because they wanted to hate it. I'd take a flawed attempt with good actors over a safe, boring retread any day.