With the Ghostbusters remake, one need look no farther than Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice to see another example of a movie being completely taken in by pure, unadulterated craziness.

Look, I completely get it: We’re human, aren’t we?  We’re just as capable of loving one thing and hating another.  God knows, I was never a fan of Star Wars and to this day cannot understand why people love it so much.

However, I don’t go out of my way to point fingers and yell from the rafters as to why Star Wars is crap.  Frankly, I’m happy people found something they like and enjoy the hell out of it.  Especially those people my age who experienced it first, in 1977, as a child.

When BvS was first announced, there seemed to almost immediately appear a group absolutely convinced the movie would be terrible…even when it was a year or more away from release.  Some of their opinions I can’t debate: If you have experienced all of the Zach Snyder directed films and found they weren’t your cup of tea, it was logical to assume you would probably not be pleased you with his latest film.

Having seen only one Zach Snyder directed film in its entirety before BvS (for the record, it was Dawn of the Dead), I came into that film a near “virgin” with regard to the works of Mr. Snyder.  I also tried, despite the very negative critical reactions, to see it with as neutral a mindset as I could.

I liked the film.  I really liked the film.

And I now hate it because the Ultimate Cut of the film is so much better than the theatrical cut!

Similar negative vibes moved to the Ghostbusters remake.  People primed themselves to hate it many months before the film was released and, surprise surprise, many of the things they were so-damn-certain they would hate they wound up finding -and hating- in the film.

A self-fulfilling prophecy if there ever was one.

Over at the IMDB listing for the movie you have a featured 1 star review wherein the author, Girlycard, goes over everything s/he felt was wrong with the film.

Here’s the first of their complaints: This movie was stolen. Everything in this movie was stolen from the first two. All they did was literally take the first movie, and remove the action parts and the horror parts.

I don’t get it.  The movie is a remake.  If you hear they’re remaking Ghostbusters and the movie comes out and turns out to be a romantic film set in the 1800’s British highlands involving the upper and lower casts, wouldn’t people have been scratching their heads and wondering what the hell did this have to do with the original Ghostbuster films?

Then there’s this: The sexism. This movie is probably the most sexist movie since Doomsday Machine. They replaced the entire main cast with only women to appeal to the radical Feminists. When your ideology discriminates against who you can cast in a role, that is called Fascism, and it’s not a good thing.

Hoo boy.

I just didn’t see it.  If anything, the film slyly inverts some standard movie sexism jokes.  In the Mel Brooks comedy The Producers, you have a sexy (female, natch) secretary who is a complete bimbo and does absolutely nothing but get oogled over by the men.

In Ghostbusters, you have Chris Hemsworth play Kevin, the male iteration of this stereotypical female role.  He’s quite literally this very same “dumb blonde” secretary who the female staff (actually, mostly Kristen Wiig’s Erin Gilbert) oogles over and makes an ass out of herself doing so.

So, in The Producers using the dumb blonde female secretary is ok but if we invert this trope in Ghostbusters we’re being…sexist?!

Worse, fascist?!?!?

Complete bullshit and the purest of exaggerated hyperbole.

Also, the male characters in this films are not all portrayed as idiots.  Apart from Kevin, they seem reasonably “normal” characters (male AND female) for a slapstick comedy.  It’s like focusing on Rick Moranis’ Louis Tully playing a nerdy/horny fool in the original Ghostbusters and thinking that’s anti-male sexism.

Allow me one more thing pointed out by Girlycard: The racism. The only black character was turned into a loud, annoying, street-smart stereotype.

In this case, I have to admit when I saw the first trailers for the film, I feared there might be a possibility of this being the case.  Not the “racism” (more bullshit hyperbole) but rather that the “only” (by the way, she isn’t) black character was turned into a “loud, annoying, street-smart stereotype.”

Instead I was delighted to find Leslie Jones’ Patty Tolan far from just “loud” and “annoying”.  She was presented as “street smart”, but this was done in a positive way.  For you see, her “street smarts” involved knowing about historical aspects regarding New York the other Ghostbusters did not and proved herself to be very much a helpful character in their mission.  And she does this while not yelling!  Imagine that!

Not to get too far afield, but if you compare her character with that of Ernie Hudson’s in the original film, she comes out better.  Remember that Mr. Hudson himself stated in interviews he views his participation in the original Ghostbusters with great ambivalence.  He was brought into the film thinking he would have a meatier role but once the cameras started rolling his character’s participation in the film was trimmed to almost nothing but the token “African-American” guy by the end.

My point here is this: I can totally understand people really, really loving the original Ghostbusters and not stomaching a remake that does not involve Dan Ackroyd, Bill Murray, et al.

I get it.

But you know what?  You can do as I do with films I don’t care all that much about:  You can simply ignore them.  Why expend so much energy hating on something you probably aren’t interested in seeing in the first place?  Seriously, you don’t have to do it.

The Ghostbusters remake, for those willing to give it a shot, is a funny, engaging film that, while far from perfect, promises a good time…if you can overlook some of the movie’s faults.  At times there is a certain choppiness to the story and there was at least one major plot element that was clearly cut from the theatrical version…though perhaps it was just as well.  Finally, not all the jokes land, but –shocker– that’s not unusual for a comedy.  As long as you do laugh several times during the film’s run, it’s done its job.

The movie, like the original Ghostbusters, concerns a group of people (yes, women are people, too) who are drawn together because mysterious things are a’happenin’ in New York.  As already mentioned, Kristen Wiig plays Erin Gilbert, nerdy scientist who is desperately seeking tenure at a prestigious university.  Melissa McCarthy is Abby Yates, her childhood friend who, along with Erin, were once a duo determined to prove ghosts exist.  Erin left that behind but is drawn back and meets up with Abby at her university.  There, Erin meets Abby’s right hand woman, the bizarre Jillian Holtzmann (a very funny turn by Kate McKinnon) and they go investigate a potential spiritual apparition.

This investigation winds up squelching any chance for Erin to get her tenure so the trio decides to form their own “ghost hunting” business.  Soon, they are hired to take on a job by the not-always-yelling Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones), who later joins the group, while also hiring the absolutely clueless Kevin (Chris Hemsworth) as their secretary.

As it turns out, there is a menace brewing which may lead to an apocalypse.  The Ghostbusters not only fight this menace but, in an amusing turn, they also have to deal with the Mayor of New York who…ah, I won’t give it away but will say the Mayor proves a funny twist on the “typical” higher-up reaction to something fantastic.

Getting back to something I noted a little before: The one major plot element which seems to have been trimmed from the film involves Erin leaving the Ghostbusters.  This sequence is never shown and when Erin does get back to the group in the movie’s climax Abby happily states “You’re back!” yet we never saw her leave in the first place.  Why they didn’t remove or change that line I don’t know.

Again, nothing terribly big but it does point out the film had sequences which were eventually discarded (they also got rid of the very funny joke about the selfie picture in the heavy metal concert.  I thought its presentation in the trailer was funnier than the truncated version in the film proper).

As for the cameo appearances by the original cast…I hate to say it but they were largely not all that great.  There are those who stated Bill Murray’s cameo was the best but, frankly, I thought it was only ok.  It was, however, the longest of the cameos and involved two sequences.  My favorite was probably Sigorney Weaver’s but even that one could have been funnier, IMHO, if instead of having her they had Dan Ackroyd in that particular scene instead of Ms. Weaver.  It just “fit” Ackroyd’s character in the original movie a little better.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on enough.  If you can put aside your emotions and nostalgic fondness regarding the original Ghostbusters and give this new version a shot, you’re in for some fun.  This film may not be the best comedy evah, but it will have you laugh plenty of times.

Recommended.