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Ghostbusters (2016) ✦ Full-Length Watchalong Reaction (Patreon)

Published:
2024-10-12 19:00:09
Edited:
2025-05-21 23:04:06
Imported:
2026-08
Tags:

Content

📢 I WATCHED THE EXTENDED EDITION: 2h13m

It's reboot time! I'm looking forward to your comments on this one, especially since I've had so many people on YouTube telling me that I should skip it. 😅 I DON'T SKIP. [Direct link here.]

Thanks for watching!

✦ KL

Files

Ghostbusters (2016) ✦ Full-Length Watchalong Reaction

Comments

William

I’m looking forward to this one. I don’t care what teh internet says, I quite enjoyed this one. In fact, me and my three brothers ALL watched this one TWICE in the same day, once after another. We darn near pissed ourselves laughing. Sure, this isn’t high art, but whatever. It makes me smile. We always were a strange family. 😉👻

Death Lego

Well..... Interestingly, when Peter interviews those people about their end of the world prophecies in GB2. One says that it was that year and the other says it'll be 2016. When I saw this, it felt like the apocalypse for the franchise. 🤣 Obvs, I'm being playfully hyperbolic. Looking forward to giving it a second chance. (Ish) 🤣

Nathan Jasper

Despite the criticisms, it is a fun film, no less than any other film in the franchise. It was catered to 3D, so that hurt it slightly, and anyone other than Melissa McCarthy would have been better, but as far as alternate universe storytelling goes, it's a lot of fun. And yes Kate McKinnon absolutely is the best LOL

Sam

Without wishing to sound negative, couldn't we all watch the theatrical version of stuff and not the obscure, extra 15 minute version that adds nothing to the film other than 5 bucks negative credit on my bank balance? Because now, after paying for this film twice, I still couldn't get the right version and I'm going to have to PirateBay it. I mean seriously, who is asking for this cut of a film no one liked in the first place?

Steve Mercier

Huge fan of Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon, Chris Hemsworth kills it, but...I don't know...just didn't find it particularly funny or engaging. Have absolutely no problem with the idea of a reboot, or having an all-female lead cast--to that I say Fuckin-A--but everyone seems to be trying to play the Bill Murray part at the same time...and that just doesn't work. You need a straight-man (not that kind). Don't think it deserved the puke-drenched hate it got; but, nostalgic movie nerds gonna movie nerd, so...

Tyler Foster

Funny that you mention Bridesmaids: this is the fourth movie that teams Melissa McCarthy and Paul Feig, who directed Bridesmaids, and co-wrote and directed this. He is also the co-creator of the cult TV show "Freaks and Geeks," alongside Judd Apatow, who produced Bridesmaids and got Feig involved. Not saying it's wrong, per se (and you are definitely not the first person to say it), but I have always found it funny when people negatively describe this movie as an "SNL" skit, because Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd were both from "SNL," and Harold Ramis was on the Canadian equivalent of "SNL," which was called "SCTV," and is also where Rick Moranis was from. Both movies are equally born from sketch comedy, so I would argue that the "SNL"-ness is not among the issues. That said, I do think the movie's script is its weakest element. As you say, the secret weapon of the original Ghostbusters is clarity of character. Some of the jokes aren't funny in and of themselves, like Egon saying, "I looked at the trap, Ray." What's funny is the character work behind it. I think this movie attempts to do that: Erin is desperate for validation, which she tries to repress but is bad at it, Abby is more about enthusiasm and positive energy but doesn't care about recognition, Holtzmann is an oddball and the tech-head, and Patty is the realist and has the history of the city under her belt. However, Feig also comes from the Apatow school of improvisation, using what is colloquially referred to on DVD releases as "line-o-rama", certain lines or moments where they simply cycle through whatever Feig or the actor comes up with for a joke. While some of Feig and Apatow's movies benefit from this, this movie isn't one of them, partially because I don't think that riffing is rooted in those characters. Just to give an idea of how much improvisation there was in the making of this movie, if you tally up all the content available, in addition to the Extended Cut, which is 15 minutes longer than the theatrical cut, there's about 155 minutes of deleted and alternate material, which is crazy. (I've actually wanted to make a recut of this movie to get closer to the idealized version of the film that you say exists within it, but I've also been saying that for almost 10 years now.) One of Feig's mistakes here(and this is not always a weakness, even for Feig himself, but it is in this case) was that he likes to do test screenings, and would recut the movie based on the results. You might err closer to your opinion of Ghostbusters 2016 with Feig's film Spy (I guess it depends how your Bridesmaids re-watch goes), but, IMO, Spy works because the comedy and the thematic backbone go hand-in-hand, like the characters and the jokes in the 1984 Ghostbusters. Here, following the results on the cards meant that Feig gutted the character arcs of Erin and Abby because some of those scenes didn't get laughs...even if they weren't supposed to. The reason I suggested the Extended Cut is because it's at least a little bit clear that both the heroes and villain have gone through the same kind of bullying and rejection, but only one of them decided to unleash the apocalypse over it. On the other hand, it still remains unclear, for example, that the end of their friendship was Erin simply disappearing on Abby during a live local TV appearance, which is why she has the line at the end saying "I wasn't going to leave you twice." All that said, while I don't mind some of the improv-y looseness and thus would call the movie fun, I also think "mediocre" is at least a fair assessment. When the first trailer for this movie dropped, it immediately -- and I mean pretty immediately -- became the most downvoted YouTube video in history (a record which it may in fact still hold). Although I have been a Ghostbusters fan my whole life, I had never previously thought about the Ghostbusters fanbase as an entity at all until they threw the most egregious tantrum imaginable, drumming up some of the most wildly misogynistic memes I've ever seen, as well as launching a racist hate campaign against Leslie Jones that temporarily scared her off Twitter. (One "fan" in particular will forever be cemented in my mind as the worst it can get, when he actually said it was nice that a person who wasn't even involved with the movie's wife had died because he had the temerity to say the movie was enjoyable, and even went so far as to frame it like he knew it was wrong to say it, but that the guy had earned it because he was complimentary.) It is, in fact, an imperfect movie -- but I'm glad you reacted to it. (Going to put a bit more history and trivia in a second comment.)

Movies with KL

The extended edition was suggested by a long-term member here who has been a very vocal large fan of this franchise. I agreed because that version was available to me and I have watched different versions of others films here for Patreon/YouTube. I notice that your monthly charge for my Patreon goes through tomorrow, so I will process a refund of it and hopefully that covers the cost of what you paid.

Movies with KL

Oh yeah I know they were on SNL, but the first two GB movies humour/script did not feel like SNL sketches to me, that's all. This one did. That's crazy that this movie is even longer... I kind of wished it had been 90 minutes and may have enjoyed it more if it was! The feminist whining/racism stuff is crazy. People are crazy.

Movies with KL

Yeah I don't have a problem with female leads (really love them actually!), but the writing still has to be half-decent and this just felt a little on the messy side.

Movies with KL

Oh I didn't realize it was a 3D movie... can def see why some visuals were the way they were now!

Movies with KL

I can picture you all giggling like crazy. Glad you enjoyed it!

Nathan Jasper

Upon the rewatch, I admit I completely forgot how awkward the humor was especially in the first 30-45 minutes. Thank God they introduced Kate McKinnon's Holtzman early because she held it together.

Tyler Foster

The history part: 10 years after Aykroyd packed up his office at Columbia and left because they wouldn't pay $150m for Ghostbusters 3, someone had, in their free time, mocked up a Ghostbusters video game concept. It was so popular that hypothetical fantasy became reality, and not only was Ghostbusters: The Video Game made in 2009, they actually got everyone to come back for it: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, and more all lent their voices to the game. It's not a great game, and Murray (in his classic mercurial fashion) only recorded about half the stuff he was supposed to, which was then given to Hudson as a patch, but it's fun and has the vibe. (For awhile, fans considered it canon, but the movies made subsequently contradict it, so while many people try to claim it is, it isn't.) In any case, this set off a new round of speculation about Ghostbusters 3. Two writers for "The Office" were enlisted to script it, but after they also wrote a disastrous comedy called Year One (which Harold Ramis directed), Murray declined to even read it. (There was a rumor, an untrue one, that he outright shredded the script, but both Murray and Aykroyd denied it.) Later, another script was developed called "Ghostbusters: Alive Again," which was written in Murray and Murray-free iterations to cover all the bases, and would've passed the torch (they were trying to get Jonah Hill), but nobody was ever 100% happy with the script. They were also up against that contract where Reitman, Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis all had to agree the movie could be made even if one of them wasn't going to be involved, and Murray kept ducking them. His refusal to respond led to a made-up conspiracy theory based on an email in the Sony hack leaks where the studio contractually forced Murray to appear in the 2016 film, which 1) makes no sense because they would've just forced him to be in Alive Again, and 2) the email they were looking at was written before the reboot ever existed. That came about when Amy Pascal, head of the studio, had dinner with Feig after he had turned down Ghostbusters 3 and asked why. Feig thought about it and said that he didn't want the burden of having to literally follow up such a daunting comedy classic, and that if it were a reboot he would feel more creative freedom to put his own stamp on it. She agreed. Around this time, Ramis passed away, and shortly thereafter, Reitman decided definitively he would be fine passing on the directing job of any future Ghostbusters movies. They finally pinned down Bill, and in exchange for big payouts for everyone, they put a stake in that contract by agreeing to establish Ghost Corps, which now oversees all the movies and merchandise, the logo of which appears at the beginning of this movie. Some trivia: No surprise that streaming versions don't include this, and as you say you won't be watching it again, but one fun thing with the 3D and 4K versions of the movie is that the effects often break the letterboxing bars on the top and bottom of the screen. So, for example, when the Ghostbusters are blasting the demonic bat creature at the concert, their proton streams fly out of the frame and go over the space at the top and bottom. When Charles Dance leaves Wiig's office, you can see a bust of a man's head in the hallway. It's a bust of Harold Ramis. The bust was later donated to Ramis' alma mater in Chicago where one of his sketch groups, Second City, is located. Ramis' children are also in the movie; Ramis' daughter can be seen outside the firehouse on the sidewalk when they first go to buy it, and Ramis' son gives Rowan a high five outside the rock concert and yells "Ozzy rules!" That daughter, Violet Ramis Stiel, later wrote a book called Ghostbuster's Daughter about her father. Naturally, a big part of the movie's hate campaign rudely suggested that Ramis was "rolling in his grave," but she described his attitude towards the cartoon and the legacy of the movie, and also noted that one of her last memories of him was how much he'd laughed at Bridesmaids. Since you didn't like the movie, I doubt you will -- even I haven't done it, and I like the movie -- but you *can* actually read Abby and Erin's book, which was published in its entirety as a tie-in to the movie. One thing I appreciate about Murray's involvement is that, while I'm sure he has no idea bout the conspiracy theories regarding his participation, he actually suggested Melissa should be in it before it was a reality, and later gave an interview to Vulture where he said the deciding factor for him in making an appearance was that he wanted to make sure nobody could argue that he didn't endorse or approve of the movie because he wasn't in it. (Not that it worked.) In case you didn't recognize him, the mayor was played by Andy Garcia, who you previously saw as the casino owner Terry Benedict in Ocean's Eleven. One cameo you can't even see and would never guess: the female Slimer that appears at the end is played by the same woman who played Slimer in Ghostbusters II, Robin Shelby. The realtor who sells them on the Chinese place is also co-writer Katie Dippold. When the Ghostbusters are in the hotel first confronting Rowan-as-Kevin, there's a hotel guest there for a moment. That role was written for Rick Moranis. Moranis declined, but like Murray, not because he had any issues with the project, but because he had retired in 1991 after his wife died to take care of his kids, and now that he was potentially wiling to work, he wanted to do something substantial, and not a two minute cameo. He explained his reasoning to The Hollywood Reporter and said "I wish them well!" (Moranis also seems to view Ghostbusters II as a step down, and has vaguely suggested that he regretted making it.) The women had fun chatting about Hemsworth on the press tour. Apparently he was very afraid of improvisation and being funny, but Feig convinced him that he could do it, and then he turned out to be a natural. McCarthy said that at some point he was listening to an iPod or something and he started singing beautifully, and she joked that she insisted he stop because it would be too much to be handsome, funny, AND a naturally talented singer. Shortly after the release of the movie, Aykroyd went on Canadian TV for an interview and complained about Feig, saying he went way over budget and doomed the film. He was later very apologetic, having misstated the cost overruns of $3-4m as $30-40m, and praising both Feig and the cast. There were also some tensions between Feig and Reitman during the making of the film (Reitman apparently wanted to change it to a passing-of-the-torch sequel, which is exactly what Feig wanted to avoid in the first place), but they made peace as well and were both on stage together with Jason Reitman at Ghostbusters Fan Fest ahead of the filming of Ghostbusters: Afterlife in 2019. The subtitle is a weird thing. Someone insisted on it being in the movie at the end, even though the title in advertising and at the beginning of the movie is just Ghostbusters. There was some stupid reasoning about worry confusing retailers, which makes no sense given remakes with identical titles (and even literal sequels like The Thing 2011 and Halloween 2018) come out all the time. I just call it Ghostbusters (2016) because it seems like a sneaky attempt at further division. Also, you can write this down: Ghostbusters: Afterlife has a mid-credit sequence after the more elaborate initial credit sequence, and an end credit sequence after the full scroll, and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire only has a mid-credit sequence.

Tyler Foster

I both liked the film and helped locate the longer version, so, you can blame me.

Carl Johnson

Not great but also not bad. The improving is what killed me for it like in the dean's office. Just be done with the scene and move on. Hemsworth was great and so was McKinnon and Jones.

Death Lego

My god, it might have been worse than I'd remembered to block out. 🫣 By less than half way , I doubted I had any benefit left to give this. Certainly no more than the first 60 minutes of the unnecessarily extended run time, before I rolled over and took 40+ winks. People love to overuse that figurative gag of the impossible reimbursement of time, after exiting an unsatisfactory viewing experience. Like temporal renumeration should be obtainable at the returns desk. Well I'm waving my receipt at the befuddled customer service clerk, and they are rightly giving me the appropriate look of indifference in relation to my bizzare request. In reality, I'd be expected to apologise to the remaining half of the cinema audience for my snoring. 😁

Carl Johnson

I think my best part of the watch along was your reaction to the "metal" music. As for best part of the film, Holtzman going beast mode with the pistols was a pretty bad ass moment.

Bryan Dempsey

Once again your post film review hit the nail on head. You articulated it better than I ever could. Truth told, I did not watch your reaction, mainly because I do not own this movie nor am I willing to spend money to watch it again. I excitedly went to watch this in theaters and they got enough of my money then.

Sam

Oh dear, I just re-read my comment, and I may not have “wished to sound negative” but I certainly sounded like a dick. Really sorry, I was just a bit frustrated at the time and should have been a bit more chill. Seriously, don’t worry about the refund. Nice of you to offer, of course, but it’s really fine. ✌️

Christopher Smith

I believe the term I would use for this film is too Aykroydian. Anyone seen Nothing but Trouble written by Dan and has Chevy Chase and Demi Moore in it. Also has that stale SLN flavor but one of the bad sketches. I would guess this would have been better if written by the actresses themselves. Seems like they had to push the improv to inject their own actual humor in. Enjoyed the reaction and your thoughts. On to the next one.

BubblyRainbows

This movie, "The Lego Movie," and "Ice Age" are a long-standing mystery in my household. All three appeared in our digital library one day. My dad didn't order them, I didn't order them, and there were never any charges for them. We never came up with any good explanation for how we got three free movies, but we weren't about to ask the company and have them take the movies away, so it will forever be a mystery. I think you pretty aptly described my problem with this movie when you compared it to a long SNL sketch. The first movie was a serious movie with comedic elements. The humor fit, and the movie was grounded at least in some kind of reality. It was a comedy, but the characters and situations were at least believable. The second movie was a bit campier, but still had the great characters and interactions between them carried over from the first movie. I really like the first two movies. We skipped watching this one in theaters, not because of an all-female cast or anything like that (I am definitively pro-female casts and the misogynistic ranting against this movie before it was released was really pissing me off). We skipped it because remaking "Ghostbusters" was a terrible idea. It was a great movie that never should have been rebooted (much like "The Crow," another fantastic old movie that never should have been remade.) If this movie hadn't magically appeared in our library, I probably never would have seen it. I tried to give it a fair chance. I loved McKinnon's character, the cameos were fun, and there were a few decent jokes in it, but I just couldn't with some of it. Hemsworth's character was not just a dumb but realistic character; he was an absolute cartoon that I kept rolling my eyes at. Much like the "villain." He can possess or entrance or otherwise control a whole group of police officers and military personnel and what does this fiendish ghost trying to start the apocalypse do? Makes them do a dance number. And some of the intended humor, like Wiig's character carrying her belongings down the hall after being fired and giving literally everyone she passes some kind of lame explanation, is so cringey it hurts. I do think there were the seeds of a decent movie in here. I just think they needed to dial back the cartoonishness of the humor about 50% and give the movie some kind of ties to reality instead of absolutely everything being a joke. This was the first time I rewatched it, and it's not so terrible that I couldn't sit through it, but despite my hopes that I might like it better on a rewatch, sadly I didn't. But I did have some fun watching along with you, so there's that. Looking forward to the next two Ghostbusters movies, which I haven't seen yet! Hope you had a nice weekend! ✌️🤓

Tyler Foster

It was a promotion: five free movies when you link your Movies Anywhere account with any other service. The five movies were Ice Age, The LEGO Movie, Ghostbusters (2016), Jason Bourne, and Big Hero 6.

Tyler Foster

Aykroyd was not involved with the writing of the movie, so in this case that was not a culprit. Aykroyd, per all accounts, was very hands-off: he gave co-writer Katie Dippold a book about the occult with a note wishing her luck and then stepped aside. It was director Ivan Reitman who was a little more of a backseat driver.

Movies with KL

Totally fair. It's nice knowing that my reviews are still enjoyed even if the reaction itself isn't watched. (I've actually done that myself for a few reactions on YouTube.)

BubblyRainbows

Ah, okay. I never heard about that. But we already owned "Jason Bourne" and "Big Hero 6," so I guess we just got the three. Honestly, I never expected to ever find out the answer to that. Thanks!