Ghostbusters (2016) is a reboot of the original Ghostbusters (1984) movie. If you’ve been living under a rock, the decision  for director Paul Feig to employ an all-female cast has caused such an uproar in the Internet community that I have to admit I haven’t seen this much of an anger over a film, ever. I will not completely address that in this review.

Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig), is a dorky physicist, who is up for tenure at Columbia University. While she is prepping for a class, she’s approached by a man who’s read her book on the paranormal. She’s stunned to find that a book that sold a handful of copies a decade ago. Apparently, it’s up on Amazon now, thanks to its co-author, Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy). The two had a falling out after their book flopped. Since she wants tenure, she finds Abby at a School of Scyence[sic]. Abby has been working with Jillian Holtzman (Kate McKinnon) who have made more than a few strides in paranormal research.

Erin begs Abby to pull the book, given her situation, but Abby denies the request, saying it’s funding her paranormal research. Erin implores her to reconsider, offering her a chance to investigate the man’s claim earlier that a ghost has appeared at a historically famous mansion in Manhattan. They go,and encounter the ghost of the mansion’s owner, who murdered the help, all those years ago.

The encounter is successful, and drives Abby onward. The school fires her and Jillian, but they are undaunted, realizing there’s money to be made in removing ghosts from the places they haunt. Problem is that someone’s actually causing them to appear, towards some mad goal. They find a place to work from, hire a severely dumb blond/wannabe actor/model to work the phones, named Kevin (Chris Hemsworth), however we’re not even sure he can do that. Their first client appears, right on the heels of them hiring Kevin. She’s an MTA worker named Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones), who’s had a ghostly encounter while working her booth in the NYC subway system. She more or less ingratiates herself onto the team, and off they go.

The jokes work, and this time, the mayor’s office is with them, but doesn’t want the negative publicity. They also get Homeland Security involved, who also want to keep the reality of the situation swept under the rug.

Wiig and McCarthy play well off each other, having had a decent rapport in their previous film, Bridesmaids. They play their roles pretty straight, but remain at odds with each other. McKinnon must’ve been told to let her character go, to play the Mad Scientist role, with the crazy eyes and manic attitude, but with the hatred of humanity removed from the equation. She’s just weird, and it works. Jones is the react-er, the one closest to the reality of the situation, and the one to remind the others of what does and doesn’t make sense.

I will say that there is more than one cameo appearance of the original movie’s cast in this film. The first is a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ appearance of Harold Ramis, in the form of a bust of a professor at Columbia University. There are others, but I leave them for you to discover. I also suspect there was a scene or two that were cut from the final version, for time, and I hope to see them when the movie is released digitally.

I found the movie funny and entertaining, and I do recommend it. I am generally against remakes, mainly because they often become a pale copy of the original. In my opinion, this one doesn’t fall into the same pitfalls as the rest. It stands on its own, and is worth seeing. Leave your sexist biases at home and you should enjoy this movie.

I saw the movie in 3D. It was OK, but it didn’t really approve the experience all that much. During the credits, there are some things that interact with the credits themselves, tugging and pulling them. There IS a post-credits scene.

I find the backlash against the casting of this movie very sad. The fact they went with an all-female cast and the umbrage against that is very telling about the nature of the movie business. Don’t give in to it.