Franchises: Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters (Ghostbusters: Answer The Call) (2016)

Whew, boy, where do I even begin with this things? Talk about a movie whose very existence is controversial, let alone all the behind the scenes drama and the backlash before and after its release. I myself had no clue it was even a thing until mid-to-late 2015, when I read on IMDB or some other site about its production, and then saw someone do a YouTube video on the angry rants Paul Feig was having over people who were against it. It just got worse and worse from there, as I kept reading and hearing about more angry reactions from fans, especially towards the first trailer, and then learned that the studio, director, and cast were saying anybody who didn't like it was just sexist and misogynistic, that James Rolfe got caught up in the controversy for no good reason, and when the movie ultimately bombed horribly, it only furthered the craziness. Since I wasn't a big Ghostbusters lover at the time (while I still don't absolutely adore it, doing these reviews has made me more of a fan), having only seen the first movie and played the 2009 video game, I wasn't really that concerned or even had a personal stake in all this insanity, until James Rolfe got caught in the crossfire. Now, as the years have gone by, James' pristine image has slowly but surely eroded, as he's said and done some really dumb and questionable things (I'm writing this at the time the Monster Madness plagiarism accusations have arisen), but for me, that doesn't change the fact that he got a lot of undeserved flack and vitriol for the video where he said he had no interest in seeing the movie. Never once did he say it was because it was women but merely because the original Ghostbusters is one of his favorite movies of all time and he had no interest in seeing it remade and retold with a completely new cast, women or not. And for that, he got absolutely raked across the coals on both social media and in the press, with even attacks being leveled at his family. That genuinely enraged me, not just because I was a fan of James but also due to how unreasonable it was and, at the time, I almost did a post on here telling everyone to back off and chill out, but I opted not to, because I didn't want to get dragged into it myself. It was also the first time I realized how studios, filmmakers, and the media try to push these agendas of gender and racial representation onto the public, and even though this movie was a huge flop, that trend has only gotten worse, with it being forced on more and more franchises where it's not needed or warranted. Because of all that, I decided, "Fuck this movie." I wasn't that interested in it to begin with but I definitely wasn't going to support it then and I was looking forward to its failure.

I stuck to my guns about never seeing it until I decided on the theme for this October Fest and came up with the idea of reviewing the Ghostbusters movies as part of it. Since I was doing the original two, I figured I might as well watch this, put my two cents in, and get it over with, so here we are. I streamed the movie online in January of 2021 and, I'm not going to lie, that was a painful two hours. Except for Leslie Jones as Patty, I didn't care for any of the Ghostbusters as characters, Chris Hemsworth's character of Kevin was cringe-inducing and annoying in his stupidity, the villain and his motivation were pathetic, the cameos by the original cast members were pointless, the humor ranged from awkward and unfunny to desperately trying to be hip and just plain obnoxious, and, try as I might, I could not separate the movie from all of its toxic baggage. However, I didn't think it was a total bust, either, and when I re-watched it a couple of times recently, I was able to see a lot more potential. Like I said, I do like Patty, even though she does still suffer from moments of being a stereotypical sassy black woman, I think the special effects are really good, a number of the ghosts are memorable and occasionally creepy, the music score and soundtrack are pretty good at points, and it definitely has the most epic climax of any of these movies. In fact, if it weren't for those other issues, this might work as a decent, female-centric parody of Ghostbusters, kind of like how Paul Feig's previous movies with Melissa McCarthy were all sendups of other properties with women in the major roles. But, while there's enough in this movie that I like where I can't make this an entry of Movies That Suck (trust me, I'm as shocked as anybody), those other problems really weigh it down and keep it from being the truly good movie it could've been.

After leading a tour group through the old and supposedly haunted Aldridge Mansion in New York, a young guide gets the fright of his life while closing up, culminating in him seeing a ghost in the basement where a disturbed woman was kept until she died. Some time later, Columbia University professor Erin Gilbert is approached by Ed Mulgrave, the historian at the mansion, to talk with her about the haunting. He presents her with a book she and an ex-friend of hers, Abby Yates, wrote together years ago, saying he got it off of Amazon. Looking it up, Erin finds Abby put it on there without her permission, and also learns from the dean that she's up for tenure, which this book could jeopardize. She goes to confront Abby at her laboratory at the Higgins Science Institute but she isn't sympathetic about her plight, and neither is her oddball assistant, Jillian Holtzmann. Moreover, when Erin mentions the ghost at the Aldridge Mansion, Abby and Holtzmann become more excited at the prospect of documenting it than listening to her. They have Erin take her there and introduce her to Mulgrave, after which they investigate the mansion. They come face-to-face with the ghost of Gertrude Aldridge, who escapes but they manage to film her. This excites Erin, as she now knows that ghosts are real, but the dean sees the video and fires her for badly representing the school. Abby assures her that the Higgins Institute will totally back their research into the paranormal, but they then get a rude awakening when the completely dickish dean throws them out when they ask for more money. Stealing their equipment, they decide to go into business for themselves, setting up shop above a Chinese restaurant after a nearby firehouse proves too expensive and calling themselves the Department of Metaphysical Examination. Meanwhile, Patty, an MTA worker, is approached by a strange man in the subway who has a very low opinion of humanity and talks about the "Fourth Cataclysm." The man then goes down a subway tunnel and when Patty follows to investigate, she comes across a ghost that sends her running out of there. She meets the others and brings them to the tunnel, where they encounter the same ghost. Though they fail to catch it with their equipment, they do film it, and their video goes viral, with the media dubbing them the Ghostbusters. They soon begin improving and finessing their technology, ultimately managing to catch a ghost at a metal concert. Unbeknownst to them, all of these ghosts are being unleashed by the man Patty met at the subway, who ultimately intends to open a portal that will allow the dead to overrun and destroy humanity.

There was so much controversy about this movie during its development, production, and release that it's maddening trying to keep everything straight. There are conflicting reports about whether original director Ivan Reitman willingly stepped down or if he was forced to in order to make way for Paul Feig and his vision of a new Ghostbusters, which was in line with that of the head of Sony's Motion Pictures Group at the time, Amy Pascal, and also rumors that the original cast members were strong-armed into making cameo appearances, with there being very strong evidence that both are true. Obviously, I wasn't there for any of this, so I don't know how it all went down, and most of the information I have about these shady behind-the-scenes dealings come from the YouTube channel, Midnight's Edge. I went to them because they're not only a good source of information but have also been right about a number of things, like how Josh Trank went completely nuts during the making of 2015's Fantastic Four (or, as they always call it, Fant4stic), how things were not going well on Ben Affleck's solo Batman movie, which never got made and was reconfigured as The Batman, that 2017's Justice League was shaping up to be a mess, and so on. They're not always right, and even they advise viewers to take what they've heard from anonymous sources with a grain of salt, but I find them more trustworthy than any officially-affiliated news network or channel that would just tell you what you want to hear, or, more importantly, what the studios want you to, and again, in this case, they have strong evidence to back up their claims. So, I'm now going to try to sum up how it seems this movie came to be, based on everything I've heard and read, but, like them, I'm going to caution you by saying that I could be wrong about some of this.

Obviously, this starts with Ghostbusters III, which everyone knows the original creators had been trying to get made in one way or another since the second film, though it didn't start to gain major traction until 1999, when Dan Aykroyd wrote his first script. Since Aykroyd was well aware of Bill Murray's reluctance to do another movie after Ghostbusters II, which he's never been shy about criticizing as a disappointment, this script wrote him out in various ways during its drafts, and it also mentioned bringing in new blood as a means of passing the torch, which would continue throughout its development. Regardless, Sony had no interest at the time, and it was only after the immense success of Ghostbusters: The Video Game in 2009 that they became interested in making another movie. Development on Ghostbusters III then officially began at the studio, with a new script being written by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, who'd written Harold Ramis' movie, Year One (considering that movie's dubious reputation, it's probably a good thing that script was never made). The big holdup was Murray, who didn't like that script and whose relationship with Sony and Columbia was strained at this point. Because of that, it seems like they decided just to proceed without him, with Aykroyd telling Larry King as much in 2013, although he did say they would find a role for him if he suddenly showed up, wanting one, which is not inconceivable, given Murray's erratic personality and behavior. But then, in 2014, Ramis died of autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis, which he'd first contracted in 2010 and later had a relapse of. Following that, Ivan Reitman announced he was stepping down as director of the new Ghostbusters movie, saying that Ramis' death had killed his enthusiasm for it. While that is very plausible and understandable, there is evidence that it may be more complicated.

As early as 2010, the website Vulture reported that the heads of Sony wanted a younger director, namely Marc Webb, who would go on to direct the two Amazing Spider-Man movies, to take over the Ghostbusters movie, but Reitman retained a great deal of creative control, including director approval, over the brand due to contracts made with Columbia in the early 80's. Though Sony acquiesced, it seems as though, as the years passed, Amy Pascal had little faith in Reitman's vision and wanted him gone. Proof of this comes from the Sony hack of 2014, which included private e-mails between Pascal and Doug Belgrad, another Sony executive, where they don't talk about Reitman in a flattering manner. The hack also revealed that, the day before Reitman announced he was no longer directing the movie, Belgrad prepared the talking points for said announcement and that they were sent to Pascal for her approval before they went to Reitman. Once he stepped down from the director's chair and opted to merely act as producer, Pascal basically took full control of the film. Having been passionate about making movies aimed more towards a female audience, she decided to go that direction with Ghostbusters and, to that end, was intent on having Paul Feig take the reins. More leaked e-mails reveal that she assured Feig that he wouldn't have to worry about Reitman interfering with his vision and she even hosted a dinner party with Feig and many other people involved with the movie... except Reitman, who wasn't even told about the party. Moreover, in the leaked e-mails, she stressed the importance of Feig never mentioning this to Reitman when the two of them met for the first time.

Paul Feig himself is a very interesting cat (no kidding, right?). He started out as a would-be standup comedian and actor, appearing in movies like Heavyweights and also having a recurring role in the first season of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. He also created the cult favorite TV show, Freaks and Geeks, and made his directorial debut with 2003's I Am David, which featured Jim Caviezel. While that and his second movie, Unaccompanied Minors, didn't do much, he really hit it big when he started making comedies with Melissa McCarthy, doing Bridesmaids, The Heat, and Spy, all of which were enormous hits worldwide. When he was interviewed by Variety in 2015, Feig said it was no coincidence that his movies are so female-centric, as he grew up an only child who spent a lot of time with his mother and his closest friends were either girls or sensitive guys. Because of this, he was often bullied by other boys, and his last name was mocked due to its having the first and last letters of a certain homosexual slur. For that, I have a lot of sympathy for the guy. But where my sympathies end is the way he attacked and insulted fans on social media and in the press, hurling insults, calling them names, and, like so many others attached to the movie, said the only reason they were against it was because they were sexist, rather than considering that this wasn't what the fans wanted! It's also hilarious how Feig often made things harder for Sony up leading up to the movie's release. For instance, Sony's higher-ups did not want the movie to be tied to a specific political candidate in an election year, but it ended up getting tied to Hillary Clinton and Feig doubled down on the sentiment in an interview with The Wrap, saying, among other things, "I am very much pro-Hillary." Moreover, when the new chairman of Sony's Motion Picture Group, Tom Rothman, was asked by the Hollywood Reporter how much the movie would have to gross in order to warrant a sequel, he didn't comment; when Feig was interviewed by Vulture, he bluntly gave the figure: $500 million. Not surprisingly, before it became clear that nothing was going to come from this movie in terms of sequels or the shared universe the studio apparently wanted, it was reported that Feig was not going to be brought back.

Okay, enough behind-the-scenes shenanigans. Let's get into the actual movie. Out of the three initial Ghostbusters, Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) is the one I can tolerate. At the beginning, she's a professor at Columbia University who's up for academic tenure, when the research on ghosts she did in her past literally comes back to haunt her in the form of a book she wrote with her former friend, Abby Yates. Learning that Abby put the book on Amazon without her permission, she goes to confront her and tries to get her to take the book off the site because it could jeopardize her job, but she instead gets dragged to the Aldridge Mansion by Abby and Jillian Holtzmann to investigate a haunting. Though Erin is not at all happy about this, and initially thinks the others are attempting to spook her with fake paranormal activity there, she changes her tune when they encounter an actual ghost and capture it on film. Unfortunately, her enthusiasm about having seen one on the video gets her canned when the dean at Columbia sees it, leading to her joining Abby and Holtzmann when they strike out on their own. Of the three of them, Erin is the one who's the most intent on their being taken seriously as a scientific research group, coming up with the name, "Department of Metaphysical Examination," to boot. She's especially none too pleased when the media labels them as the "Ghostbusters," but when they succeed in capturing a ghost at a metal concert, she's more than willing to embrace the moniker. You learn that her fascination with ghosts goes all the way back to when she was eight as, for a year, she was haunted by the ghost of her next door neighbor. That's how she and Abby became friends, as she was the only kid who believed her. And, like Abby and Holtzmann, she's a smart enough physicist to figure out that the movie's villain, Rowan, is unleashing ghosts along ley lines and is going to rip open the barrier between this world and the spirit world if he sets one of his devices off at the point where the lines intersect.

But, despite being probably the most down-to-Earth of the first three Ghostbusters, there are things about Erin that annoy me. Chief among them is how she kind of tries to be a snarky, one-liner-spewing smartass like Peter Venkman but she, instead, delves into that really awkward type of responsive humor where she's like, "Oh, um, is that what we're doing now? Oh, okay. I see what you

did there," and, "Oh, I get it. Because of this..." I'll go into more detail later but, with few exceptions, that kind of humor does not work for me. Second, I find it really irritating how shallow she is when it comes to Kevin and his being a hunky beefcake, regardless of the fact that he's a total idiot. Granted, she's unsure of hiring him as their secretary because of how dumb he is, but other than that, she never misses an opportunity to get really close to

him and acts like an infatuated schoolgirl whenever he's around. And third, I know she's freaked out and everything, but when she figures out that Rowan intentionally killed himself in order to open the portal as a ghost and attempts to warn the mayor, she acts like a hysterical crazy person, so it's small wonder that no one wants to listen to her.

Melissa McCarthy as Abby, however, is where the characters really start to get on my nerves. She tries to be like this movie's version of Ray in how gun-ho she is about investigating hauntings and paranormal activity, but I just find her to be obnoxious. When Erin confronts her about putting their book on Amazon without her permission, Abby flat-out says, "I don't need your permission," and that she's using it as a revenue stream, mocks Erin saying she's up for academic tenure, and is more concerned about her having only one wonton in the soup she ordered. Plus, there's the moment where she and Holtzmann trick Erin into listening to a supposed EVP that turns out to be a fart and how overtly dismissive Abby is about her plight, only interested in her closing the door to her lab when they leave and having her get them into the Aldridge Mansion by introducing them to Ed Mulgrave. Granted, it's implied that she's acting this way because she feels like Erin abandoned her and her work, but she still comes off as really unlikable and annoying. For instance, when she and Erin are arguing about the book, she talks about how it was their baby, that she abandoned it before, "It even learned to fly!", and then goes on about what she would do if she had a flying baby. And while she is good enough to invite Erin to join her and Holtzmann after they get fired, I feel it's likely her fault she got fired in the first place, since somebody had to have uploaded that video to the internet. From there on out, they keep trying to make Abby come off as sassy, enthusiastic, and intelligent, and they also attempt to give her some depth by revealing that she was the only one who didn't treat Erin like she was crazy when she talked about seeing a ghost when she was a kid, as well as have her state that they can be the ones people who are terrorized by ghosts can count on, but I still just find her very annoying.

However, the one I absolutely wanted to reach through the screen and strangle is Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon). This woman is like if you took Egon's eccentricities and amped them up to the tenth power, as she is so bizarre and quirky that, in the end, she's just annoying. She may be a technical genius in engineering, coming up with a lot of different toys for the girls to play with (toys that are actually pretty cool), is the one who turned the hearse into the Ecto-1, decided to make use of some graffiti as the Ghostbusters logo, and she also has one of the most epic moments during the final battle, but her weirdness and tendency to want to screw with people is infuriating, like how, when they're at the Aldridge Mansion, she has a video camera in Erin's face, asking her annoying questions, and loudly munching on Pringles when they're faced with the ghost, saying, "You try saying 'no' to these salty parabolas." Another example is when they're setting up their headquarters above the Chinese restaurant and Holtzmann dances and mimes singing to Rhythm of the Night while setting up her equipment. That's annoying enough but then, she dances around with two lit acetylene torches, sets something on fire, and continues fooling around when she grabs the fire extinguisher to put it out. It's all clearly a manner of flirting with Erin, and it gets tiring just how much she wants Erin to get up in her guts (yes, I'm aware that McKinnon is a lesbian and I have no issues with that; I just find her character annoying). I could go into more detail about other annoying things she says and does, like when she's fooling around with a wig and hat when they're supposed to be looking for the ghost at the metal concert, or the intentionally weird way she calls for Abby when she's in the bathroom, but you get the idea.

Finally, on the opposite side of the spectrum, is Leslie Jones as Patty, probably the one character in the movie I truly like. Like Winston in the original movies, she starts out as a regular nine-to-fiver, working for the MTA, when she encounters a ghost in the subway tunnel and tells the Ghostbusters of it. After the four of them encounter the ghost again, Patty, rather than being scared and freaked out to the point where she wants nothing more to do with it, offers to join the team, saying they need her street smarts and her knowledge of New York as a city, as she proved earlier when she told them how the subway was below what was an old prison where people were put to death by electrocution. Plus, since her uncle owns a funeral service, she gets them a car to carry their equipment around in, something they desperately need. And also like Winston, she offers a blue-collar, normal civilian view on the crazy things going on around her, and I think Jones does a good job at it. Granted, Patty still suffers a bit from being a sassy black woman stereotype, but Jones is able to make it work to where it's easy to take (up to a point, anyway). It doesn't hurt that I find her to be genuinely funny, too. For instance, when she's showing them the subway tunnel, she says, "That's where I saw that weird sparking thing," and when asked what it was, says, "Baby, if I knew what it was, I wouldn't have called it a 'weird sparking thing.'" Or when they're investigating the metal concert and she sees a mannequin behind her that wasn't there before. She wonders as much aloud, then says, "Please, do not answer," and when it starts chasing her, she runs, yelling, "I said don't answer!" Right before that, when she comes upon a room full of mannequins, she comments, "Okay, yep. Room full of nightmares. Not goin' in there." As she walks away, she says to herself, "I don't understand how I get wrapped up in this stuff. I had a good job at the MTA. Was it perfect? No, of course it wasn't perfect. But, I tell you what, everybody was alive." Now, sometimes, it gets to be a bit much, like the infamous, "The power of Patty compels you!" scene, but, overall, had they gone with one of the previous ideas of having a new Ghostbusters team that included a woman, I wouldn't have minded if Jones had played that woman.

Now, back to annoying: Chris Hemsworth as Kevin. Lord, I would love to ask him why he took this role, because it is embarrassing, to say the least. Kevin is the most blatant stereotype of the dumb, blonde jock. As good-looking and muscular as he is, he's incredibly stupid. He removed the lenses from his glasses because they kept getting dirty. He has a dog named "Mike Hat" but says it in a way to where it sounds like he's saying "my cat," asks if he can bring him to work, and then says the dog lives with his mom. He says he won't listen in on their conversation and covers his eyes... and when he hits a gong a few seconds later, he covers his eyes again and says, "God, that's loud, huh?" He tried to come up with some logos for the girls and shows them a drawing of a ghost with big boobs, which he thinks they want bigger, the logo for 7-Eleven because... reasons, and a hotdog floating above a house, which he says suggests that a ghost is holding the hotdog. (I seriously feel like I'm getting stupider as I'm writing this.) When they make him his secretary, Kevin has to be told to answer the phone when it's ringing, hangs up on someone because he's not into the conversation, forgets to tell them about calls and appointments, constantly trips or bangs into the door when he goes out, and thinks he can become a Ghostbuster himself. It's only when Kevin is possessed by the spirit of Rowan that Hemsworth is able to let out the charisma he's usually known for, and after Rowan leaves him and the day is saved, he reveals he took time out to go to a deli while the Ghostbusters were busy saving the world and still thinks of himself as part of the team.

Remember how I said I didn't think much of Gozer and Vigo in the original two movies? Well, as unimpressed as I am with them since they don't do much in their respective films, especially Gozer, I will say that their being ancient supernatural entities waiting to wreak havoc on the world of the living makes them far more memorable and compelling than this film's villain, Rowan North (Neil Casey). This guy acts really creepy, speaks about the "Fourth Cataclysm," sees mankind as, "Walking sewage, concerned only with their own trivial matters," and often talks to himself about "charging the lines," "creating the vortex," and, "breaking the barrier." After he's seen using electronic devices to apparently unleash ghosts at various points in Manhattan several times, the Ghostbusters realize he's doing it across the ley lines that run through the city, creating the structure of a vortex, with the center being the Mercado Hotel, where he works as a janitor. It turns out Rowan is a deranged but brilliant scientist who created this technology after he was inspired by, of all things, the very book Erin and Abby wrote years ago, and now plans to rip open the barrier dividing the living and the dead, allowing the dead to overrun and destroy the world. Moreover, when the Ghostbusters confront him in the hotel's basement, he kills himself before he can be arrested, which turns out to have been part of his plan along, as he intended to personally lead the unleashed ghosts on their rampage. Indeed, after his suicide, his evil spirit is unleashed and he first possesses Abby, then Kevin, using his body to return to the hotel and finish the job. 

So, what's Rowan's motivation for doing this? Simple: he's been bullied his entire life and has become so bitter about it that he intends to bring about the end of the world. He also talks about allowing all these spirits who've been forgotten and are as angry and bitter as he is to take their revenge, but really, he's just a whiny brat with a god complex, at one point proclaiming, "I am a

genius. I see things that no one else does, and for it, I am rewarded with nothing but scorn and mockery." This is such a major opportunity. They could've easily made this guy a flesh-and-blood Ivo Shandor, the mad architect, physician, and occultist mentioned in the original Ghostbusters but who was long dead by the time of that movie's events, and have him simply want to bring about the apocalypse because of his belief that humanity is

garbage. They could've also had him be the leader of a cult of similar-thinking people who also intend on destroying mankind. But no, they had to make him a loser who now has the opportunity to be the bully for the first time in his life (he even says as much in one scene). You know, Rowan, maybe if you wouldn't act so creepy and standoffish to people, including Patty, who was trying to be nice to you in the subway, you might not still be such an outcast! Granted, Rowan does manage to bring about a much bigger calamity than either Gozer or Vigo, and when he's a ghost, he proves to be quite a powerful threat and fierce opponent for the Ghostbusters, much more so than those past villains, but that pathetic, petty motivation really hurts his overall effectiveness.

Unlike the mayor in the original movies, who was a stern but sensible and competent man (save for his treatment of the Ghostbusters in the second movie), Mayor Bradley (Andy Garcia) is, like just about every guy in this movie, a douchebag and a moron. He has the Ghostbusters brought in following their capture of the ghost at the concert and the death of Dr. Martin Heiss at their headquarters, reveals that he and the Department of Homeland Security know about what's going on, and after they tell him what they know (which he doesn't seem to take very seriously, probably because he doesn't understand half of it), he tells them that they've done good work but they need to quit and let the government do their job. Moreover, he says they're going to have to make the public think they're frauds in order to keep from causing a panic, much to their chagrin. Though his secretary, Jennifer Lynch, and two DHS agents continually enforce this notion whenever the Ghostbusters are forced to jump into action, Bradley isn't seen again until Erin shows up at a restaurant where he and Lynch are having lunch. Before Erin shows up, you see how dumb he is when he and Lynch are arguing over the old sawing in half magic trick, with Bradley thinking it was actually real. Of course, when Erin bursts in and tries to warn him of an impending calamity, Bradley doesn't believe her and gets really irked when she asks him not to be like the mayor in Jaws. Even after the major disaster that befalls New York, Bradley and his office continue to deny it was anything supernatural. When a reporter tries to talk with him about it, Bradley is totally distracted, not listening, and when the reporter suggests what happened was due to terrorists drugging the water with hallucinogens, he goes, "Wait, what?" But he does begin secretly funding the Ghostbusters' activities behind the scenes.

Jennifer Lynch (Cecily Strong) is horribly smarmy, condescending, patronizing, and insincere when she talks about the need to keep the paranormal away from public knowledge and tells the Ghostbusters they need to make them look like frauds. She's especially bad whenever she talks to the press about them, at one point describing them as "sad and lonely" women pulling publicity stunts. That latter statement she makes right after the incident at the Mercado Hotel, where she, initially, thanks the Ghostbusters for what they've done, then turns around and says they're going to have fake arrest them, as well as that they had their car towed. Later, when Erin tries to warn Mayor Bradley that Rowan's spirit is planning on ripping open the barrier between the living and the dead, Jennifer, naturally, thinks she's nuts and tells her that the mayor is very busy, when he's just sitting there. But, at the end of the movie, Jennifer visits them and, after insincerely saying, "We want to thank you for your discretion," adding that their discretion isn't working at all, she tells them they want them to continue researching the paranormal and that the mayor's office will fund them completely. She also sees to it that they finally get to work in the firehouse, which they couldn't afford before.

The two Homeland Security agents, Hawkins (Michael K. Williams) and Rourke (Matt Walsh), who are supposed to be dealing with the paranormal activity themselves don't do anything of note save for detaining and transporting the Ghostbusters to meet with the mayor, as well as fake arresting them at the Mercado. They also criticize them for not being discreet about their

activities, with Hawkins asking, "Do you have any idea how many federal regulations you're breaking on a daily basis?" Holtzmann then proceeds to annoy them, asking, "One?... Two?... Is it one?" Charles Dance also appears briefly as Dr. Filmore, the dean of Columbia University, who suggests Erin reject a recommendation letter for Princeton in favor of a referral from a "more prestigious college." But, when Filmore learns of the video of

Erin, Abby, and Holtzmann investigating the Aldridge Mansion, which includes Erin excitedly yelling that ghosts are real and she just saw one, he promptly fires her due to how badly it will reflect on the university. Speaking of the mansion, Ed Begley Jr. plays Ed Mulgrave, the mansion's historian who first comes to Erin after finding her book and tells the women of the ghost seen there, as well as that the tour guide who saw it crapped himself.

When it was announced that Bill Murray, the man who, for years, had prevented Ghostbusters III from happening until it was too late to do it properly, had agreed to make a cameo appearance in this movie, people absolutely lost it and were calling him out for his apparent hypocrisy. At the time, it cemented everything I'd ever heard about Murray being a total asshole, as it seemed as though he was doing it because Harold Ramis was no longer around to be a part of it. However, the Sony leak provides a piece of evidence suggesting that something more nefarious happened behind the scenes. There are e-mails where the higher-ups are discussing "aggressive litigation" they could take to ensure Murray would appear in the movie, with one of them, David Steinberg, stating, "Personally, while I'm fine with aggressive, I think we are in much worse shape if this goes public, so seems to me we should look for someone who isn't seeking the spotlight." Of course, when the movie came out, Murray was very enthusiastic about it, saying he did it because he's friends with Melissa McCarthy and Kate McKinnon and went on about how funny they are and the amount of success they were going to have with the movie. You could literally see and hear the sarcasm when he made those statements, and when Murray appeared with the cast on talk shows to promote the movie, while everyone else was managing to put on a happy face, he clearly didn't want to be there. After he was announced, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, and Annie Potts all followed suit, although a leaked e-mail that dates to when it was first announced that a female-centric reboot was being made says Aykroyd was far from happy. Moreover, even though Aykroyd did support the movie as well at the time, he's since made polite but disparaging remarks about both it and Paul Feig.

Murray's appearance in the movie (he's the only one of the original cast members who has more than one scene) is as Dr. Martin Heiss, a paranormal debunker who is down on the Ghostbusters when they first begin to gain publicity, deriding their video of the ghost in the subway as fake. After they capture the ghost at the metal concert, Heiss comes by their headquarters to

confront them about their "faking" everything, when Erin tells him of the ghost they captured and shows him the container. Obviously, he asks to see it, but Abby is reluctant, saying they have yet to assess the containment method they're going to use in their lab, although I really think she just doesn't want to show him because he mocked them on TV. Heiss sees this as another sign of their being

frauds, even going as far as to say they look like garbage handlers rather than scientists, and this irks Erin to the point where she opens the container. The ghost escapes and sends Heiss flying through the window to his death (the fact that Bill Murray is one of only two people who actually die can't be a coincidence). Following that, Annie Potts appears as a receptionist at the Mercado who, when the

Ghostbusters show up, is more than willing to allow them to get rid of Rowan; Dan Aykroyd plays a cabbie who's quite versed in parapsychology and is unwilling to take Erin to Chinatown because it's a block farther than he wants to go; Ernie Hudson is Patty's uncle, who owns a funeral service and isn't exactly thrilled when he learns what happened to the hearse he let her borrow for the girls; and Sigourney Weaver is

Holtzmann's mentor, Dr. Rebecca Gorin, who's very stoic and tells Holtzmann how unstable her ghost containment system is, before agreeing with her that, "Safety lights are for dudes," and high-fiving her, which she says she hates doing. Also, there's a bust of Harold Ramis seen outside of Erin's office at Columbia University early in the movie. Ozzy Osbourne appears as himself at the metal concert, yelling, "Sharon, I think I'm having

another flashback!", after the Ghostbusters manage to contain the ghost there. And like in the original movie, real TV news personalities appear as themselves, such as Al Roker, Pat Kiernan, Greg Kelly, and Rosanna Scotto.

A major criticism towards the movie is that it's just as anti-male as it is pro-women, with nearly all of the male characters being portrayed as idiots (Kevin), incompetent (Mayor Bradley), pompous (Dr. Filmore), assholes (the dean of the Higgins Institute, Dr. Heiss, and, naturally, Rowan), or a combination of the above. There are also male characters who end up embarrassing themselves, like Garrett, the Aldridge Mansion tour guide who

apparently soiled himself when he saw a ghost or the theater manager who literally screams like a girl. But while the men are certainly not portrayed in a good light, the women don't come off that great, either. I've already described the annoying and, in some cases, unlikable quirks and habits of the Ghostbusters themselves, including those of my personal favorite, Patty, but let's also not forgot that they steal some of their equipment from the

Higgins Science Institute, something Venkman, Ray, and Egon never did. Plus, other female characters include the insincere and patronizing Jennifer Lynch, the cold and uncaring receptionist at the Mercado Hotel, the uptight Dr. Gorin, who seems to be encouraging Holtzmann's recklessness with the ghost containment system, and the first ghost, Gertrude Aldridge, who's said to have killed her family's servants (at least the library ghost in the original movie didn't have that kind of horrific history). So, in my opinion, very few people come out of this movie looking good, regardless of their gender.

Speaking of gender, let's talk more about the ridiculous controversies that surrounded this movie and which I think are a big part of why it failed. It's bad enough that the studio decided not to give diehard fans the third Ghostbusters they'd wanted for years, or, at the very least, give up entirely once Harold Ramis passed away, but rather, opt to totally reboot it, but then, you start going with this agenda that anybody who doesn't want to see the movie is a sexist man-baby. Now, granted, there probably were sexist, misogynistic douchebags among the thousands complaining about the movie (such a thing is inevitable) but most of the complaints came down to the simple fact that this isn't what the fanbase wanted. Ivan Reitman, at least, understood that's what the problem was,

telling Entertainment Weekly at the time, "I think that many of the people who were complaining were actually lovers of the [original] movie, not haters of women." But that didn't stop Sony, Paul Feig, and the media outlets supporting the movie from continuing to stoke the flames by leveling such allegations at anybody who complained about it, as well as belittling them, mocking them, and, in Feig's case, throwing nasty insults at them. All of them conveniently ignored the numerous instances

of actual constructive criticism, as well as that a number of the detractors were women themselves, instead cherry-picking the more vitriolic, outraged examples, along with those that did contain sexism and racism. Even major critics who panned the movie, like Richard Roeper, were attacked, similar to the moronic death threats received by critics who didn't absolutely love The Dark Knight Rises in 2012. And then, to top it all off, the movie got tied to the presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, with Clinton and the cast appearing on an episode of Ellen in the lead-up to its release and Judd Appatow, a longtime friend of Feig's, referring to the movie's haters as "Trump supporters." Because of all this stupidity and vitriol, both people who were maybe keeping an open mind about the movie and those who already weren't interested in seeing it decided they definitely weren't going to support it and thus, coupled with its inherent flaws, it bombed.

Even though I was not a huge Ghostbusters fan at the time, I was still disappointed and shaken by this and the stain it left on the franchise. While definitely more than just silly comedies, these movies, first and foremost, are meant to be just fun, and here they were being associated with overzealous politics, forced gender identity, and people ready to tear each other's throats out. Sadly, it hasn't stopped since then but has only gotten worse, with more and more franchises being forced to go "woke," as they say, and studios not learning when these films and televisions shows are continually rejected. The very announcement that

Ghostbusters: Afterlife was being made stirred the controversy up all over again, which was even more eye-rolling. Now, many other people have said this, but I'm going to say it myself, as I totally agree with this sentiment. Female and racial representation is a good thing and deserves to be employed more than it is, but trying to force it on a property where that's not what it's about is only going to come back and bite you, as it did here. Instead, create franchises built around them, and be sincere about it rather than trying to ram it down people's throats just because.

Okay, that's the last bit of behind-the-scenes drama, I promised. Now, let's talk about the third major reason why this movie does not work: the humor. While the original Ghostbusters featured humor that was nicely woven into a horror movie aesthetic and had a bunch of very funny and talented actors playing off each other wonderfully, this film features a group of women who, while undoubtedly talented, feel like they're in an extended SNL

sketch with the way they react to things and each other. When they see the ghost of Gertrude Aldridge at the mansion, though Abby and Erin are in awe, and their excited reactions afterward do feel natural, the moment where Erin goes up to the ghost and tries to introduce herself doesn't. Would you do that if you saw a ghost? No, you'd either totally freak out, faint, or act like Venkman, Egon, and Ray when they encounter the library ghost in

the first movie, which is be so taken aback that you don't know what to do. That's another reason why I like Patty as much as I do: she reacts to the ghosts the way a normal person would. As for the interactions between the Ghostbusters, there are numerous times where it feels forced and like they're trying to one-up each other, such as that moment where they're about to enter the metal concert, Erin and Abby both say, "Let's go," and

then they're like, "Oh, sorry. Did you want to?" "Next time. Next time." There are a number of these over-explanatory, awkward exchanges between them. After Dr. Heiss is thrown out the window of their headquarters and they're explaining what happened to a cop, the Patrick Swayze movie, Ghost, gets brought up and Abby decides to throw in a little bit of Dirty Dancing

while she's at it, leading Erin to point out how she's combining two Swayze movies and mention how great Roadhouse is, as well as bring up Point Break. But the worst is when they're meeting with Mayor Bradley and Jennifer Lynch and they tell the Ghostbusters they want people to think it's all a hoax to avoid mass hysteria. Erin points out that, "The cat is sort of already out of the bag," Abby says, "I think what they're saying the cat is out of the bag. They want us to put the cat back... inside the bag," and they get into a heated discussion of whether or not one can put the cat back into the bag, as it were. It's so awkward and eye-rolling and, when Jennifer finally shuts them up, it's a major relief.

Besides being just plain stupid a lot of the time (Paul Feig wanted to have Rowan use his power to force the military and police to start dancing but it was so bad they decided to stick it behind the ending credits), the humor is sometimes immature and crude. Case in point: the fart "EVP," Garrett having soiled himself upon seeing the ghost (which Holtzmann expounds upon by noting how it could have been worse had he soiled himself with

something other than fecal matter), the ghost of Gertrude projectile vomiting all over Erin (yeah, Venkman was slimed in the original movie, but it wasn't done in such a juvenile manner) and Erin later describing how it went in every single crack, Abby getting soup and saying she hopes what's floating inside it is a chestnut, and the piece de resistance: Rowan turning into a giant, monstrous version of the Ghostbusters logo and the girls blast

him between the legs with their proton beams. Also, let's not forget the moment where the dean of the Higgins Science Institute fires them and acts so obnoxious about it. First, he tells them to suck it (Erin and Abby quietly discuss whether or not he'll say that before he does), then says he thinks a ghost is in the room, only to give them two middle fingers and say, "Oh, no, it's not. It's just a bird."

He goes on by pointing at the door with the fingers, saying, "Bye. There's the door. Later days. Can you hear this? Let me turn it up," points his middle fingers opposite each other, and starts making tweeting sounds. To top it off, he does the cliche of acting like he's blowing up a balloon and having his one middle finger slowly extend, before acting like the balloon is flying up into the air, then pointing at them again and saying, "Caught it." My head felt like it was about to explode by the time that was over.

There are some annoying running jokes in the movie, like Abby constantly ordering soup from the Chinese restaurant they ultimately set up shop above and not getting the amount of wontons she desires, as well as having to deal with the same slow delivery-boy. Another starts at the Aldridge Mansion, where Erin steps on a glob of slime on the floor and then, continually throughout the movie, the slime seemingly can't stay off her.

Unfortunately, they also decided to make use of it when the Ghostbusters confront Rowan during the climax, with Erin slipping and falling on some slime when they enter the Mercado Hotel and find the vortex. That really hurts the effectiveness of what's meant to be a very serious moment, something the movie does elsewhere, with, "The power of Patty compels you!" line diffusing the

effect of Rowan's having possessed Abby, Holtzmann's annoying fooling around when they're searching for the ghost at the metal concert, and the aforementioned moment of Rowan getting blasted in the balls during the climax. Again, there may have been instances of humor during otherwise serious and creepy scenes in the original movies, including the climaxes, but they were woven in so much better.

Going back to those references to various movies, it's indicative of how this movie is trying to come off as hip and trendy, which is also seen when Patty does the Oprah thing of, "You get a car! You get a car!", when she presents them with the hearse that eventually becomes the Ecto-1, when Abby says the reason no one takes them seriously at first is because of dumb, ghost-hunting reality shows (to be fair, those shows are a bunch of bull), and when

she's describing the plight of a woman who's talking about a ghost in her house, saying, "She can't call the police. She can't call her friends. Who's she gonna call?" Speaking of which, while there are many callbacks to the original Ghostbusters, the way they're done gives off this air of superiority, like the filmmakers think this movie is so much better. Besides the less than flattering cameos for the original cast members, the

iconic logo comes about here because a dickhead graffiti artist paints a ghost on the subway walls to annoy Patty and when she says she doesn't want it, he puts the "no" symbol around it, which inspires Holtzmann to incorporate it into their business. When Abby realizes the fliers she put out for them aren't working, she comes up with a new slogan, beginning, "If there's something strange in the nei...", before Erin cuts her off. Kevin, of course, is

like one big insult towards Janine. During the climax, you have Abby, Holtzmann, and Patty getting attacked by these evil parade balloons, one of which is the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, who comes down on top of them and flattens them against the road, until Erin shows up and pops him with a Swiss army knife. In a big wide shot of the city during this section, you can see an

advertisement that states, "That's a big..." and you see an image of a Twinkie beside it. Then, of course, you have Rowan taking the form of a giant, monstrous version of the Ghostbusters logo, which isn't a bad idea in and of itself... but then the women blast him between the legs, which really feels like it's meant to be a symbolic statement. And finally, during the epilogue, you have that moment where Holtzmann and Dr. Gorin agree that, "Safety lights are for dudes," sort of a jab at the way the containment system in the original movie worked.

However, now I'm going to switch gears and talk about the things I feel this movie does right, as unpopular as that might be with a lot of you who wanted me to totally bury it. First off, it's very well made on a technical level, being very bright and colorful, with lots of deep blues, greens, and reds. Granted, unlike the original movies, that keeps it from being truly atmospheric, but it still gives it a distinct look. Also, the budget is very much up

there on the screen, as this is a movie whose scale becomes positively massive by the third act. There was some concern from the studio since Paul Feig had never done a mega budget movie with a lot of special effects like this, but like Ivan Reitman before him, who was in a similar situation when he directed the original Ghostbusters, I think he handled himself quite well. There are some memorable sets and locations, like the Aldridge

Mansion, which is a classic, spooky-looking mansion on the outside, while the inside is much more posh and well preserved, with a notable red and green color palette to many of the corridors and rooms, save for the creepy basement where Gertrude Aldridge was kept; the dark, grimy subway tunnels where Patty first encounters a ghost (those were actually in a studio, but you'd

think they shot in an actual subway); Abby and Holtzmann's initial lab at the Higgins Science Institute, which is full of all sorts of crazy equipment, as well as a big orange screen separating the front and back of the room; the Ghostbusters' initial headquarters above the Chinese restaurant, with the red-and-white tiled floor, the Chinese decorum, the big round opening

that serves as the door, and the workspace in the back that Holtzmann sets up, while Kevin's desk is up near the front; the downstairs of the theater where the metal concert takes place, which has a room full of wigs and another of creepy mannequins, as well as the stadium itself, and the interiors of the Mercado Hotel and the basement where Rowan keeps the enormous machine he plans to rip open the barrier between the real world and the world of the dead.

Unlike the original movies, very little of this one was shot in New York. Most of it was actually shot in Massachusetts, specifically Boston, with the exterior of the Aldridge Mansion actually being Boston University Castle. Also in Boston were the exteriors of the Chinese restaurant, their new headquarters at the end of the movie (which was the outside of another restaurant), the Wang Center for the concert scene, and Federal Street for the

scene with the parade balloons. Also, the exterior of the Higgins Science Institute was the Old Everett High School in Everett, Massachusetts, Southfield in South Weymouth stood in for Times Square, and the Ames Mansion in Easton was used for the Aldridge Mansion's interiors. They did shoot in Tribeca, New York and outside of Columbia University, but other than that, the shooting was mostly done in Massachusetts.

Most of the well-known equipment and gadgetry is carried over from the original movies, albeit either slightly or completely redesigned. The Ghostbusters' uniforms are very similar, with the one difference being the white and pinkish-red stripes across their torso; the PKE meter now has a vertical, rotating, red and blue wand atop it that spins around really fast, with the two halves of it separating, whenever there's an increase in

paranormal activity; the proton packs look very similar, as do the beams, but the back-straps are now red, the design has a more high-tech feel, and you also see what the equipment looked like before it was made portable and when they first tested the packs, which had such a powerful kickback that Abby was flying through the air and had to wait until it ran out of power; and the ghost traps are more akin to large, thermos-like canisters rather

than being box-shaped like before. The Ecto-1, which is based off a 1984 Cadillac de Ville this time, has a slightly different shape to it, with sharper edges, its roof is pink, and it has a ghost-shaped hood ornament, but other than that, it looks pretty much the same, complete with the logo on the driver's side door. Later in the movie, Holtzmann comes up with some new weapons,

such as small explosive devices like grenades that harm ghosts; a "ghost chipper," which sucks in ghosts like a vacuum and obliterates them; a proton glove that fires orbs of energy and is great for hand-to-hand combat against ghosts; and a deceptively small gun that totally neutralizes ghosts with its blasts. Also, during the climactic battle, Holtzmann pulls out these two sidearms that

generate proton beam-like whips, allowing her to ensnare and even slice apart ghosts, and during the epilogue, she comes up with a large, bear-trap-like device that she claims catches and transports ghosts... somewhere. While writing this, it just hit me that this is probably the first time in the franchise's history where they come up with methods for actually destroying the ghosts than merely containing them. I don't quite know how to feel about that. Feels kind of counteractive to what they're supposed to be about, doesn't it?

Like in the original movies, the ghosts are mostly nameless specters with little to them in terms of character, although some are actually given backstories. For instance, the first ghost, Gertrude Aldridge, is said to have gone mad, murdered all of the servants, and banished to the basement for the rest of her life. In death, she proves to be just as nasty as she was in life, as she pukes green slime, which she'd filled the basement with in the

opening, all over Erin when she tries to communicate with her, and like the Library Ghost in the original movie, they don't catch her. The second ghost, whom Patty encounters in the subway tunnel, is never given a name but is indicated to be a prisoner who was put to death via electrocution in the prison that was once above the subway, which is clear through the striped prison outfit he wears and the electric sparks zapping

from metal clamps on his body, as well as a metal plate on his head. Like Gertrude, they don't catch him, as a train comes through after they ensnare him in the proton beam and carries him off. The ghost they encounter at the metal concert initially inhabits and possesses a mannequin, but after the Ghostbusters destroy the mannequin with their proton beams, it's revealed to be a green, demonic, dragon-like entity that, like Slimer in the original

movie, gives them a run for their money. Apparently frightened of them, as it knows their proton beams can harm it, it flies up into the stadium where the concert is taking place, with the performers and audience thinking it's part of the show, but the Ghostbusters do manage to catch it. But, when Dr. Martin Heiss drops by their headquarters and, after continuing to call them

frauds, demands to see it, Erin lets it loose and it sends Heiss falling out a window to his death when it escapes. We don't get any more ghosts until after Rowan's death, but when the Ghostbusters confront him in the basement of the Mercado Hotel, you not only see the enormous machine he's constructed down there to let the dead loose upon the living but also a closer look at windows showing the angry

souls trying to escape from the other side, which is quite an eerie image, actually. Speaking of Rowan, I also find it to be an interesting dynamic that he's using the same type of technology as the Ghostbusters, only to bring about ghosts rather than contain them. And like the original movies, they try to have it make sense in terms of physics and parapsychology, with him using his devices to

charge ley lines, which are a real concept concerning alignments of energy between landmarks, historic structures, and bizarre events around the world and that the spots where they intersect are especially powerful. Fittingly, the spot where the ley lines intersect in New York is where Rowan intends to create the vortex allowing the dead to invade the world of the living.

Rowan's ghost form is nothing special in terms of look, as we never get a good look at it and it doesn't look any different from the other ghosts, but he proves to be quite powerful. First he possesses Abby and attempts to trash the Ghostbusters' equipment and almost kills Holtzmann (I was wishing he would), proving to have superhuman strength and also turns Abby's head completely around. He's expelled rather easily

by Patty slapping Abby in the face, but he then possesses Kevin and uses his body to get back down to the Mercado and create the vortex. He's able to float while possessing Kevin, as well as manipulate objects and the bodies of others, as he does with the military and police when they show up to face him. After leaving Kevin, Rowan, like Gozer, reveals he has the ability to take on any form he wishes, and uses it to become a gigantic, monstrous

version of the Ghostbusters logo, which I think is an interesting concept and looks quite good as well (I could do without the bow-tie, though). Of course, when he creates the vortex, all sorts of ghosts invade New York, such as a flasher ghost, a bunch of ghostly rats that come up from the subway, and Slimer, whom they come across at a hotdog cart and hijacks the Ecto-1. He later shows

back up in the car, now accompanied by a girlfriend and other ghosts hanging on the hood. They end up getting sucked into the vortex when the Ghostbusters blast the car's nuclear reactor in order to reverse its effects, which was meant to segue into an animated series involving him and his girlfriend that never came to be. The Ghostbusters also run into a line of ghostly parade

balloons, which are best described as what it would look like if Tim Burton designed the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, as there a bunch of ghouls that have that look to them (as well as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man). When they reach Times Square, the battle an assortment of ghosts from centuries past, including ghostly pilgrims, led by a tall, spindly ghost in a top hat who, again, has a Burton-esque look to him. Gertrude, the executed inmate ghost, and the dragon ghost all show back up here, too.

While many have always been down on their, predictably, being almost totally CGI, I think the visual effects here look really good. While some may be a little too bright and colorful to be truly scary, and their designs sometimes make me think of those in the Luigi's Mansion games, I think the ghosts look good and are on par with those in the original movies, as are the proton beams and other energy blasts, and, as I mentioned before, I really

like the scale the movie builds to during the third act when the vortex opens. You see the energy shoot up into the sky and cover it in dark clouds with a swirling green center, there's an aerial view showing how the ley lines have become energized, and there's a crap-load of chaos that follows, like the ground cracking open and unleashing ghosts, thousands of ghosts flying among the buildings and appearing everywhere, Times Square getting

reverted back to the way it was decades ago, and Rowan's monster ghost form rampaging through the city. Speaking of which, I like how, when he first changes into the ghost in the symbol, it's traditional animation, but then transitions into CGI when he becomes monstrous. And again, even though he clearly is CGI, I like the look of this big, monster ghost. Also, like the original movies, they did use actual actors for some of the ghosts, like Gertrude Aldridge, the electric ghost, and the flasher, and I've read that they did try to use practical effects whenever possible (though I don't know exactly where they were employed).

The film's opening scene at the Aldridge Mansion is actually quite well-done and promising, starting with Garrett, leading some people through the mansion, telling them of its illustrious history, as well as the story of Gertrude Aldridge, her murderous rampage, and her horrific fate. He mentions that the door to the basement has been sealed shut for a long time, ever since another

owner reported hearing strange sounds down there, and, on cue, a candlestick topples off a dresser next to the door. He leads the group on down the hall, suggesting they steer clear of the door, but as they pass by it, the camera focuses on a sparking device underneath the dresser. Later that night, after the place has been locked up, Garrett prepares to head out, picking up the candlestick, which was rigged

to topple over from the bottom. He hears a squeaking sound behind him and turns to see the knob for the door to the basement slowly turning from the other side. It stops, only for something to start pounding and yelling maniacally on the other side. This sends Garrett running to the front door, but when he grabs the knob, it becomes red hot, burning his hand. An invisible force then slams

him up against the wall and he crashes down on a table below. He gets up and runs to an old sitting room he'd shown the tourists earlier. He grabs a chair and tries to break the window, but something catches the chair in midair and throws it back at him. He runs out of the room and, when the basement door blows open, he makes the mistake of running down there. When he reaches the bottom of the stairs, the floor lights up with a green

glow emitting through the many cracks in it, and when he turns around, the door closes by itself. Green slime oozes out of the floor and covers the railing of the stairway. Garrett runs back up the stairs, but they break and then completely collapse right as he reaches the door. As he hangs there, terrified, a blue figure of mist emerges from the slime and envelops him in a blue glow. Again, fairly effective opening, although the movie's title, which you see afterward, is really lame in that there's nothing special about the text and it's just flatly placed against shots of the New York skyline.

Following Erin's unsuccessful attempt to confront Abby about their book and her meeting Holtzmann, the next major scene takes place when the latter two have Erin accompany them to the Aldridge Mansion in order to introduce them to Ed Mulgrave. When they arrive there, they first meet Garrett, who tells them that Ed Mulgrave has been dead for fifteen years... when the man whom Erin

met that morning shows up, revealing himself to actually be Ed Mulgrave Jr. After Mulgrave tells them that Garrett saw the ghost and crapped himself, Abby asks that Garrett let them into the mansion, but he merely tosses the key to the ground and tells them, "You're gonna die in there." Once inside, Abby starts scanning the place with a PKE meter, Holtzmann videos the whole thing, and

Erin just tags along, having to deal with Holtzmann's annoying interest in her. The PKE meter leads Abby to the basement door, but she's unable to open it and moves on. While lagging behind, Erin steps on a small glob of green slime, and while she's distracted by it, the basement door slowly opens behind her. Turning and seeing it, she believes the others are trying to scare her and

confronts them about it in the next room. Abby denies having anything to do with it, and then turns to see the basement door is, indeed, open. Again, she and Holtzmann say they didn't do that, and when Erin suggests it was either Mulgrave or Garrett, Abby points out that they're both still outside. The antenna atop the PKE meter starts whirring around very rapidly, something Abby says she didn't even knew it did, their ears pop, and a

blue glow emits from the open doorway. Abby puts away the meter, takes the camera from Holtzmann, and begins filming, while Holtzmann loudly crunches on some Pringles. As they watch, the ghost of Gertrude Aldridge emerges from the doorway and slowly floats toward them. While they're all in awe, Erin approaches her, planning to try to communicate, while Abby continues filming. Thinking that Gertrude does want to communicate,

Erin walks up to her and begins introducing herself, when Gertrude's face suddenly turns skeletal and she vomits slime all over Erin, covering her from head to toe. Gertrude then flies out the window and the others, including Erin, chase after her. Running out to the sidewalk, they see Gertrude fly about the street before going off into sky. Once she's gone, it hits the three of them that they actually just saw a ghost and, as Abby keeps filming, they become extremely excited. Erin looks right into the camera and proclaims, "Ghosts are real! Ghosts are real!" And, thus, she gets fired from Columbia University.

While the girls are setting up shop after Abby and Holtzmann are discharged from the Higgins Science Institute, at the Seward Subway Station (which doesn't actually exist), Patty is introduced as she sits in her booth, trying to make small-talk with the passersby, only to be continuously ignored. The only one who doesn't ignore her is Rowan, who shows up right outsider her booth,

tells her that the people she's trying to talk with are trash, and also mentions the "Fourth Cataclysm," adding, "Laborers, such as yourself, will be among the last led to the butchery. So, make the most of your extra time." Patty, naturally, doesn't pay him any mind and merely comments on his personality as he walks away. But when she glances at the security monitor, she sees Rowan walking towards

the tracks. She grabs a flashlight and heads down the tunnel, yelling for him. Hearing something clink behind her, she swings around her, missing Rowan running across the tracks behind her and hiding. When she turns back around, she sees a sparking device attached to the wall right above a fuse-box and then sees a figure on down the tunnel. She tries to tell the person they're not allowed down there, when the device on the wall explodes,

causing her to recoil. When she looks again, and as Rowan watches from his hiding spot, Patty realizes the figure she's looking at is a ghost, one with sparks zapping off his form. He turns and looks at her, slowly floating towards her, while Rowan remarks, "Exquisite," from his hiding spot. Patty tells the ghost she's cool, when he yells at her and she runs back down the tunnel, yelling, "Forget this, man! Forget this!" After that, Rowan is shown

to have returned to the Mercado Hotel and is giving himself a sinister pep talk while looking in the mirror. His condescending superior contacts him, telling him about a clogged toilet he needs to take care of, as well as calling him a weirdo and a freakshow. Rowan responds neutrally, then reminds himself, "Charge the lines. Create the vortex. Break the barrier," while we get our first look at the screens showing the angry souls wanting to escape.

Following the women interviewing and hiring Kevin as their secretary, Patty comes to them and tells them of the ghost she encountered in the subway. She takes them down there, telling them, "You know, up above us was the old New York prison. It's the first place in New York that they electrocuted people. I'm telling you, it used to take so long that they just be like, 'Shoot em! We using

too much electricity.' That's why I knew somethin' weird was goin' on down here, man." After she gets through telling them this, the lights on the tram flicker, and they then run into a graffiti artist who visits the station frequently. When asked if he's seen a ghost, he proceeds to spray-paint one on the wall, with Patty trying to stop him, and when he gleans that she doesn't want the ghost there, he fixes the

drawing, resulting in the "no ghost" symbol, which Holtzmann, who's pushing a cart with their equipment, thinks is really cool. She takes a picture of it before joining the other women in the tunnel. As they walk down there, something drips on Erin's dress and they realize how unsanitary it is down there. Abby gets a fairly strong PKE reading at a burn mark on the wall, which Patty recognizes

as where the device from before was. Abby and Erin find a tin plate on the ground which the latter says looks as though it's "fission-scorched," while Abby sniffs it and comments, "I'm smelling both electrical discharge and isotopic decay." She asks Holtzmann to come in and see if she detects the same smell, when Patty tells them they only have a couple of minutes before the next train comes through. Suddenly, some lights short out and

Holtzmann points at what she says are a pair of eyes down the tunnel. At first, Erin thinks she's messing around, but a very strong PKE reading and the appearance of the ghost Patty saw before proves she's not. They ask Patty to shine her flashlight on the ghost but then wish they hadn't, as the details make him all the more unsettling. Patty notes that this ghost is even more ionized than the one they encountered at the Aldridge Mansion and

decides to film him, as well as capture him. Holtzmann gives Erin the prototype proton wand, telling her it'll shoot a beam at the ghost. She also pulls a metal collar around her neck, saying it's to ground her and keep her from dying, and when Erin says no when asked if she knows her iron level, Holtzmann says, "It's fine."

Abby keeps filming, while Holtzmann powers up the equipment and tells Erin to fire on her cue. She does, but the proton beam falls very short, barely making it a third of the way towards the ghost, and fizzles out. Holtzmann tries it again and, this time, the beam is long enough to reach and ensnare the ghost, though it does little to actually stop him. Moreover, Holtzmann says she can't give any more

power. The ghost lunges at Erin, who falls to the side of the tracks, when a light down the tunnel indicates the approach of the train. Patty warns them they need to move and she and Abby pick Erin up and run her to the platform, while Holtzmann runs ahead of them. The train quickly closes in and they realize that Erin is moving very slowly because she's still anchored to the equipment

via the collar. Reaching the platform, Holtzmann disconnects the collar, as the train hits the equipment and pushes it across the tracks. The train also hits the ghost when he's in front of them, splattering them with ectoplasm as he's caught up inside it. Patty comments, "Well, I guess he going to Queens. He's going to be the third scariest thing on that train." While Abby and Holtzmann are

jazzed about what just happened, Erin tries to calm down from almost dying. The movie slows down for a while after that, with Erin and Abby looking over the remains of the device, which Erin describes as a miniature cyclotron; Patty joins the team and gets them a car from her uncle's funeral service (though she's unaware if there's an actual body in the back); Holtzmann creates the first version of the proton pack, as well as the ghost

trap; and they try out the proton pack in an alleyway, only for the beam to be so strong that it sends Abby flying crazily through the air. Rowan, meanwhile, appears at a metal concert being held at the Stonebrook Theater, showing his disdain for those around him, commenting, "This world cannot be cleansed fast enough." At the same time, the girls are bummed that the media is labeling them as the "Ghostbusters" and Dr. Martin Heiss says their

video of the subway ghost is a hoax. Also, after Kevin answers a phone call, and they have to actually him what was said, they learn of a ghost terrorizing the Stonebrook Theater and roll out. That's when they see that Holtzmann has turned the hearse into the Ecto-1, much to Patty's chagrin, as she doesn't think it's appropriate for such a vehicle. Regardless, they drive off for the theater.

When they arrive and walk in, they're met by the manager, who walks up and asks if they're the Ghostbusters. Still not crazy about that name, Erin tries to correct him with their actual, overlong name, but Abby stops her and says they are, indeed, the Ghostbusters. A terrified Hispanic man is wheeled out on a gurney, rambling in his native language, and when he passes by them, Erin

comments, "Chicken frying itself in the library. That is strange." The others, of course, don't buy that that's what the man said. The manager then leads them downstairs to where the man, Fernando, was attacked by something that tossed him around. He also says he shrieked when he saw it and apparently scared whatever it was away, as he's been told he has a very disturbing scream. Abby

has everyone split up and search the place, while upstairs, the concert is starting. After Erin is annoyed by Holtzmann's fooling around in the dressing room, which contains wigs and hats, Abby gets a very strong PKE reading and walks into a room to find another sparking device sitting on a table. Meanwhile, Patty wanders around elsewhere, very nervous, and when she comes upon a room

full of creepy mannequins (according to the plate on the door, it's the laundry room!), she opts not to go in there. But when she ducks back out, one of the mannequins turns its head after her and then starts following her as she walks on down a hall. Sensing it, she turns around and sees it standing there. She tries to remember whether or not it was there before, when it starts chasing her down the hall. She runs into the room where the others have

gathered around the device and closes the door behind her, only for the mannequin to start smashing through the wood. She runs to the others as the mannequin smashes completely through and enters the room. Erin and Abby realize a ghost is possessing the mannequin, as its featureless face frowns and the spots where its body parts are connected glow red. They pull out their proton wands and fire at the mannequin, completely

engulfing it in their beams. It explodes and the green, dragon-like ghost that was possessing it roars and ducks out of the room. The Ghostbusters chase after it down the hallway, firing at it, when it makes its way up through the ceiling, leaving a bunch of dripping ectoplasm in its wake. They rush upstairs after it, as it comes up through the stage during the concert and flies above the band and the crowd. All of them are totally jazzed by it, while the effects man tries to tell the lead singer it's not one of his creations.

Reaching the backstage area, the Ghostbusters watch the ghost fly around the spotlights and other equipment, with Erin figuring the machines are making him stronger. When the ghost flies right above the audience, the lead singer has the spotlights all focus on him, saying they've managed to summon Satan. The ghost then flies at him and slams him against the equipment at the back of the

stage, which only gets the audience all the more pumped. The Ghostbusters rush out onto the stage and fire their proton beams at the ghost, but he agilely flies around, dodging them. Seeing the damage they're causing, the manager yells at them to aim for the ghost, and lets out a girly scream when they blast off a chunk of the architecture. Abby and Patty decide to take two aisles across

from each other, and when Abby can't get the excited crowd in the mosh pit to clear a path for her, she jumps onto them and has them move her to where she needs to be. Patty tries the same thing, but the crowd clears for her and she slams onto the floor. Lying there, she grumbles, "So, okay, I don't know if it was a race thing or a lady thing, but I'm mad as hell." Abby has the crowd put her down,

while Patty gets to her feet, and it's revealed that the ghost is perched on her shoulders. The others try to warn her but it's clear she already knows and, commenting that she's tired and wants to go home, turns and walks through the crowd, desperate not to anger the ghost. As she does, two onlookers use a selfie stick to get a picture with her. Abby tells the others to aim at the ghost and not to, "Hit Patty anywhere important." The three of them fire on the

ghost, which flies off Patty's shoulders, allowing her to join in. As they manage to sequester the ghost above the crowd, Abby has Holtzmann take out a ghost trap and slide it in place across the stage. She activates and opens it, as they then guide the ghost over to it. Though he does put up a struggle, he's ultimately swallowed up by the trap and contained. They all regroup on the stage, as Holtzmann holds up the steaming trap, and they

realize they caught their first ghost. The crowd joins in their celebration, the band starts playing again, and Holtzmann grabs one of the musicians' guitar and smashes it on the stage, then tosses what's left of it back to him and says, "Sorry. Can't buy you another one." The Ghostbusters exit the theater to a cheering crowd and speak to some reporters, with Erin now proudly accepting the moniker they were given. Their success doesn't go

unnoticed by Rowan, who sits in a diner, seething when he sees what they've done on the news, and says, "Charge the lines. Create the vortex. Break the barrier. Enjoy your fun, Ghostbusters. For soon, you shall bow down before me." He's then show drawing an evil version of their logo, a foreshadowing of what's to come later.

The Ghostbusters are celebrating in their headquarters, dancing to DMX's Party Up, and Holtzmann makes some adjustments to the proton packs, when Martin Heiss pays them a visit. Though Erin is accommodating, Abby isn't thrilled, given how he derided them on TV earlier. Regardless, Erin shows him the ghost trap and when she tells him a ghost is contained inside it, he

asks to see it. Abby isn't keen on this, prompting Heiss to, again, call them frauds, as well as insult them. Incensed, Erin puts the trap on the floor and prepares to open it, with Abby trying to talk her out of it, saying it's not worth risking what they've done. Erin seems to comply but, when Abby lets her guard down, she pops open the trap. Videoing it, Heiss yells, "Casper?!", when the ghost explodes

out of the trap, grabs him, flies him through the window, and sends him falling to his death, while flying off and escaping. Later, after the Ghostbusters talk with the police about what happened, Agents Hawkins and Rourke show up and escort them to see the mayor. After their meeting with the mayor and their being told to stop their ghost-catching and drawing attention to themselves, the Ghostbusters return to their

headquarters, where Holtzmann shows off some new toys for them in the alleyway next to it. She gives Erin a Swiss army knife and also has her test out one of the ghost grenades, which causes a much bigger blast than expected when it detonates; Patty tests out the ghost chipper and sucks in and destroys an entire garbage can; and Abby gets a proton glove, which fires a ball of energy that then bounces off the alley's walls, flies over them, and blows up a bike that happened to belong to the delivery boy at the restaurant.

While they deal with being labeled as frauds in the media by Jennifer Lynch, the Ghostbusters, while discussing the current rash of ghost sightings across the city, realize that all of them have occurred along the ley lines that span across it and that the person who's been leaving behind the devices they've found is using them to charge the lines. Realizing that the center of the lines is the Mercado Hotel, Erin looks up their website and

pulls up a picture of their staff, including Rowan, whom Patty recognizes from the subway that day. Abby tries to contact Hawkins and Rourke but can't find them, so the ladies load up and drive to the hotel themselves. Arriving there, the unload their proton packs and head inside. They ask the receptionist about Rowan and she, looking for any excuse to get rid of him, points them to the stairs leading down to the basement. When they get

down there, they spot some blue sparking emitting from under a pair of double doors in front of them and take out their wands and head inside. There, they find an enormous version of the devices they'd found before, as well as the windows revealing the ghosts behind them. They spot and confront Rowan, who tells them of his hatred for mankind and how intends to cleanse the world by unleashing armies of the undead. Abby, very pathetically, tries

to talk him down by telling him how there are so many wonderful things in life to experience but can't think of anything other than soup; Patty tries to add to it but she can only think of salad. Rowan goes to rip open the barrier but Abby tells him that the police have already been called. Rowan responds, "Well, in that case... bye," and grabs the large electrodes on either side of him. Thousands

of volts of electricity go through his body, killing him instantly, as he collapses to the platform. Holtzmann then runs up and shuts the machine down, while Abby, hearing the police arrive upstairs, calls them down there. Later, as the police investigate the room and the equipment, Abby notes how Rowan's technology is similar to their own. Holtzmann shows them why that is, as

she finds a copy of Erin and Abby's book down there. Jennifer then shows up, thanks them, and walks them upstairs, where Hawkins and Rourke are waiting. That's when Jennifer informs the Ghostbusters that they're going to fake arrest them and that their car has been towed. As Hawkins and Rourke lead them away, Jennifer makes another statement to the press denouncing the Ghostbusters, calling them sad and lonely. Meanwhile, downstairs, a PKE meter left down there begins to react to something.

Later, at her apartment, Erin looks through Rowan's copy of her book, finding scribbles on the pages and then fanatical drawings as it goes on, including one where Rowan writes about personally leading the ghosts. At their headquarters, Abby hears a knock at the door and thinks someone forgot their keys. She stomps over to the door, telling whoever it is that they need to pin it to their bra-strap, but opens the door to find

no one there. The light outside goes out and Abby, getting an eerie feeling, closes the door, locks it, then runs to the bathroom and locks that door behind her as well. Something pounds on the other side of the door, followed by the pipe under the sink rattling. Moving towards the sink, Abby sees a green glow in the drain, followed by Rowan's voice saying, "Hello, Abby," before something shoots out of the drain, hits her in the face, and knocks her to

the floor. At that moment, Erin calls them and gets the answering machine. She leaves a message, warning the others that Rowan's suicide was just another part of his plan. She also sees on the TV where the mayor is and decides he needs to be warned as well. Patty and Holtzmann return to the headquarters with lunch, when they notice that Abby isn't answering when they call to her. Holtzmann walks over to the bathroom door,

calling for her, and then knocking on it. Abby opens the door, says, "Hello, Jillian," to her, assures her when asked that she's, "Quite well," and walks back into the main room. She then grabs a pipe and begins smashing up their stowed away proton packs, to Holtzmann's horror. She tries to stop Abby, only to get shoved far across the floor. Abby, after calling Patty "Patricia," throws the pipe

at her, then grabs Holtzmann by the neck and picks her up off the floor by one hand. She effortlessly carries her over to the window, smashes her through it, and dangles her out past the ledge, threatening to drop her. Patty runs at Abby, tosses her aside, then grabs Holtzmann before she can fall. Abby leaps up into the air behind Patty and jumps on her back, but Patty throws her off and she

slams into the wall. Undeterred, Abby gets up again, grabs one of Patty's arms, while the other is still holding Holtzmann's hand, and Patty tries to hold her back, putting her hand on her forehead. Abby swings punches at her, then tries to make Patty drop Holtzmann, only for Patty to pin her to the windowsill. Abby's head turns completely around to look at Holtzmann, and as Patty yells,

"Oh, hell no! The devil is a liar!", she turns her head back around and says, "Boo!" Patty shoves her, only for her body to levitate right above the floor, then rise up and try to attack her. Patty manages to shove her away and then musters up enough strength to pull Holtzmann up through the window, before getting on Abby and, yelling, "Get out of my friend, ghost!", smacking her hard across the face. With that, Rowan's spirit leaves her body and flies out the window. Patty slaps Abby again for good measure, proclaiming, "The power of Patty compels you!"

They try to figure out where Rowan went, when they hear Kevin calling up to them from outside the window. There, he stands in a Ghostbuster outfit, next to a motorbike, talking about how he can help them. Seeing Rowan's spirit flying around, they try to get him to come inside but he argues, insisting he can help with their ghost-catching. Rowan takes the opportunity to possess Kevin. Looking up at the girls and saying, "Thanks

for the upgrade," he takes off on the motorbike, popping a wheelie as he goes. Meanwhile, Erin runs to the restaurant where Mayor Bradley is having lunch but only manages to make herself look crazy with her outrageous claims, as well as when she mistakes the vibrations from a passing dumpster for being the approaching calamity. Rowan then reaches the Mercado, easily disposes of the two policemen guarding the door to his

machine, kicks open the door, reattaches and activates the machine, and, this time, succeeds in destroying the barrier. The ghosts burst out of the mirrors, swirl around the room, and gather around the machine as the base of the vortex materializes there and then appears above the building itself. Erin runs through the streets, trying to warn people to evacuate the city, but then realizes she's too late when the ground starts shaking. Ghosts streak

through the air above the streets, a dark, green cloud gathers above the Mercado, the ley lines charge up with paranormal energy, and the sidewalks crack open and ghosts fly up out of them and towards the vortex. The ghosts wreak havoc throughout the city as the police are called, Abby, Holtzmann, and Patty gather into the Ecto-1 and drive off into the chaos, and Erin fails to get a taxi

to take her to Chinatown because it's one block more than the cabbie wants to go (plus, he tells her, "I ain't afraid of no ghosts,"). The other Ghostbusters come across a blockade in the road ahead of them and disembark and walk. This is when they come across Slimer pigging out an abandoned hotdog cart, and after he belches in their face, he goes straight for the Ecto-1, which they, stupidly, left the

keys in. Slimer flies in reverse back into the road, swings around and slams into the side of a parked car, and then guns it right back at them. They prepare to fire on him but Holtzmann tells them not to, as the equipment on the roof is basically a nuclear reactor. They then jump out of the way as the car smashes through the cart behind them and heads on down the road, smashing a fire hydrant on the way. Realizing that a ghost is now driving a nuke, they rush to catch up with him.

While the police and the military arrive at the Mercado, Abby, Holtzmann, and Patty run through the streets when they spot a creepy parade of balloons at the end of the street in front of them, as well as some ghostly abandoned cars. One of the balloons passes behind a building, only to peek back around and look at them. It then comes down the street at them, followed by the other balloons, and the girls whip out their proton wands and fire.

They easily manage to pop the balloons, which spew ectoplasm and expel green ghosts that flee the scene, until the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man balloon shows up and flops onto them, pressing them against the road. Because of this, Abby finds she can't reach the trigger for her beam, when Stay Puft suddenly pops and explodes. It's revealed that Erin, who's suited up, used the Swiss army knife to get rid of him. The Ghostbusters reunite, with

Holtzmann shouting, "Welcome back!", saying the balloon popped in her ear, while Abby declares, "Let's go save this city and get our terrible receptionist back." As they race to the Mercado, the authorities, including Hawkins and Rourke, are faced with Rowan, still possessing Kevin's body. He lands atop the canopy above the entrance and, with a snap of his finger, freezes them all in ridiculous dance moves. That's when the

Ghostbusters arrive and Rowan uses his power to revert the city back to its "glory days," as well as summon a number of ghosts for them to battle. They take out their proton wands and fire on a trio of ghosts that come at them. They manage to ensnare them, but the ghosts prove to be quite agile, even when tied up by the beams. One ghost from the sideline throws an axe at Patty and

Holtzmann, but they duck down and he ends up hitting another ghost in the chest behind them. Abby manages to ensnare that ghost and throw him into some others on the side. Gertrude Aldridge comes in behind Erin, picks her up, and tosses her into the waiting arms of a ghostly pilgrim, who throttles her. Abby takes out a grenade and tries to bat it towards Erin using her wand, only she misses

and has to kick it. The blast destroys the ghost's legs and Erin blasts his torso across the road. The green, dragon-like ghost from before comes in and grabs Abby from behind. He tries to fly off with her but Erin blasts him, making him drop Abby onto the hood of a car. She promptly uses the proton glove to defend herself from ghosts who swarm her, while Erin is able to use the proton beam as a whip to fight off more ghosts.

The dragon-like ghost flies at Holtzmann but Patty whips out the ghost chipper and, before she sucks the ghost in and destroys him, she declares, "And this is what you get for sittin' on me!" A big, tall ghost comes in, throws Patty against the side of a van, and then crushes the chipper, but Abby and Holtzmann neutralize him with grenades, along with a number of other ghosts. Erin is then faced with Gertrude Aldridge and the ghost from the subway

and uses the small firearm Holtzmann told her wasn't ready for her earlier; it fires a large blast that destroys both ghosts instantly. More ghosts emerge, only for Holtzmann to whip out a sidearm from either side of her proton pack and run into the fray. These weapons fire whip-like proton beams that allow her to ensnare and whip back ghosts, as well as destroy them at point-blank range and, in the case of the really tall ghost who's leading them,

zap him up the middle and vanquish him utterly. Once they're all gone, she lets out some satisfied grunts and declares, "You just got Holtzmanned, baby!" After Abby tells the ghosts she's glad she didn't know any of them when they were alive because she hates them all, the Ghostbusters head towards the Mercado, passing by the still frozen soldiers, cops, and Hawkins and Rourke. At that moment, Slimer drives by in the Ecto-1, having

picked up some hitchhiking ghosts, as well as a girlfriend; Abby comments, "Well, that thing's having the time of its life." They then enter through the hotel's front door and are confronted with the vortex's base in the lobby, as it's still spewing out ghosts. It's quite momentous, but it's diffused when Erin slips and falls on a bit of slime on the floor, saying she thinks the slime is actively stalking her

at this point. They head for the door leading to the basement, only for a grand piano to slide across the floor and slam into the wall, barely missing Abby and Holtzmann. Rowan appears at the top of the stairs and, after floating around and messing about (he asks if the pose he takes is a little too Peter Pan), decides Kevin's body is making him stupider and leaves him, causing him to fall off the landing

above the lobby. Erin and Abby manage to break the fall with their bodies, while Patty fires at Rowan as he floats along the landing. The others join in and Rowan mocks them for not being able to aim well (he does say, "You shoot like girls,"), with Patty destroying a large light on the ceiling. Erin and Abby grab Kevin's body and pull him out of the line of fire. Abby then demands Rowan

show himself and he asks what form they would prefer. Patty says, "I prefer something nice and cute, like a friendly little ghost," and Rowan, to their surprise, appears in the form of the ghost from their logo. He asks, "Is this what you want? Something more familiar?" Patty is more than okay with it, as is Rowan.

Rowan then shows why it's fine with him, as the cute cartoon ghost turns three-dimensional and then starts growing and growing. He sends them, as well as the unconscious Kevin, flying out the front door with a wave of slime, and when they hit the frozen men outside, they collapse like dominoes. Rowan grows until he fills the entire inside of the Mercado, then smashes his way out of it, as the Ghostbusters run for cover. He walks out into the

street, laughs evilly, then stomps after the Ghostbusters. Erin manages to scar the left side of his face by blasting the roof of a building with her proton beam but this just angers him and they take cover along the other side of a building. As he passes by, they rush back to the Mercado and the portal, while he rampages through the city, smashing buildings and sending people running. Looking at the portal, Abby figures it would take

an insane amount of energy to reverse the polarity. Patty then spots the Ecto-1 and asks if the nuclear reactors on the roof could do it. Holtzmann says that if the reactors went critical inside the portal, it would close it. After Abby tells Patty she's a genius, to which she responds, "I'm a Ghostbuster," they use their proton beams to create obstacles in the road that force Slimer to drive their way. When the car flies by them and into the portal, they fire at

the canisters on the roof and it explodes within the portal. Slimer and his girlfriend are sent flying up into the air on the front seat, first yelling and then cheering as they fall back down into it. The portal begins to close but, as Rowan heads their way, he grabs onto the buildings he's standing between to keep himself from being pulled into it. Seeing this, the Ghostbusters fire on him to loosen his grip,

which is when they hit him between the legs. He lets go of the buildings and is dragged towards the portal. As he falls towards it, he grabs Abby when she shoves Erin out the way, dragging her into the portal with him. Erin spots a hook and cable on the ground, connects it to her belt, runs to the portal, and jumps into it before it closes completely. Inside the portal, Erin falls towards the tumbling Rowan,

who still has Abby in his hand. Erin blasts his wrist, forcing him to let go of her, and she manages to grab her in midair, while Rowan is neutralized. Erin tells Abby, "I wasn't gonna leave you twice," when the cable suddenly whips back and pulls them in the opposite direction. On the other side, Patty and Holtzmann pull like mad and manage to rip them out through the hotel lobby's floor and out the front door. They tumble to the sidewalk outside and all traces of the portal vanish.

Everyone, including the troops and the agents, come to, and Patty and Holtzmann hug their friends, only to see that their hair has turned gray. Holtzmann jokes that the year is 2040, which Abby initially buys, and then, Kevin, back to his old dumb self, shows up, holding a sandwich, as he went looking for them at a deli while they were busy saving the world. The movie slowly wraps up, with the mayor still denying anything supernatural

happened, the city wondering if the Ghostbusters saved them, Jennifer Lynch telling them that they intend to continue funding them privately, their being able to make the firehouse their official headquarters, and Patty having to break it to her uncle that his hearse is on the other side, and not Jersey. There are some more clips during the first part of the credits, like Kevin trying to sound smart while taking calls, Holtzmann working on some new

technology, as well as introducing Erin and Abby to her mentor, Dr. Rebecca Gorin, and Patty calling the others up to the roof where they see that a number of buildings in the skyline are using their lights to proclaim their love for them, making it obvious that there are those out there well aware of what they pulled off. During the actual credits, the alternate title, Ghostbusters: Answer The Call, is

seen, which Paul Feig said was something the studio wanted. Finally, there's a post-credits scene where it's business as usual at the headquarters, when Patty listens to an EVP and asks the others, "What's Zuul?" Obviously, they planned on eventually bringing Gozer in on the sequels.

I stand by what I said about the music score for this movie, composed by Theodore Shapiro, being more memorable than what Randy Edelman did for Ghostbusters II. It's not an amazing score by any means, mind you, but it manages to capture the eerie, otherworldly feeling of the ghosts, often with a lot of vocalizing voices and a genuinely otherworldly sound, and it captures the magnitude of the breaking of the barrier during the climax, making it come off as absolutely epic. It also has a few bits that attempt to tug at the heartstrings, especially when Erin jumps into the void after Abby, though given the characters we're talking about, it's not always successful. The most memorable part of the score is this big, grand instrumental of the theme song's melody, which you hear when the Ghostbusters rush to confront Rowan at the Mercado and when they deploy during the climax, but really hits its zenith when Holtzmann goes postal on the one group of ghosts during the battle in Times Square. Again, nothing amazing, but it's certainly memorable, which is all I really ask for in a score.

As you might expect, the original Ray Parker Jr. song is heard, though only very briefly when the movie's title comes up, and three other versions are heard. One is by Fall-Out Boy and Missy Elliott, which plays when the Ghostbusters head to the metal concert (okay, but a little too much rap for me), another by Walk the Moon, which plays over the initial part of the ending credits (more in line with the original song and not bad, actually), and one last version by No Small Children over the very end of the credits. You also hear Rhythm of the Night by DeBarge when they're first setting up shop above the Chinese restaurant, Party Up by DMX during their celebration of capturing their first ghost, Low Then High and Want Some More, both by Beasts of Mayhem during the metal concert, Get Ghost by Mark Ronson, Passion Pit, and A$AP Ferg during the credits, and, also during the credits, Good Girls by Elle King.

When the movie was released on home video, it included an extended cut that's sixteen minutes longer than the theatrical cut. I'll be honest, I didn't watch the extended cut in full, mainly because I've had my fill of the movie, so I'll only mention the most significant additions. Mainly it's composed of different takes and additional lines to the scenes already present, but there are new scenes. There's a new introductory scene for Erin where she's

introduced to a prominent professor who makes it clear that she doesn't think much of scientific work being published in journals; Erin actually calling Abby and Holtzmann out on how their video got her fired from Columbia University; an extra scene with Rowan at the Mercado where he speaks with a woman who, because of what he's doing down in the basement, now has an evil spirit living in her back, followed by him admonishing the spirits in

the panels for doing this and drawing attention; Erin and Abby reenacting a presentation from their school days for Patty and Holtzmann; Erin has a confrontation with an old colleague and sort of boyfriend of hers from Columbia, while Abby and Patty comment on whether or not they are lovers and how he probably dances from nearby (which goes on way too long, I might add); Hawkins and Rourke further warning the Ghostbusters to leave

the ghost stuff alone after their meeting with the mayor and Jennifer Lynch; a moment where Kevin proves to be so stupid that he thinks they're running a restaurant rather than catching ghosts and steps into some acid that spilled on the floor; the Ghostbusters being accosted by an annoying blogger after the incident at the Mercado and Erin punching the guy out when he calls her "ghost girl"

and a freak; Erin falling into a depression due to the media fallout from the incident; Kevin expressing interest to become a Ghostbuster earlier and begin disappointed when Abby rejects him; a longer scene of Abby being possessed by Rowan, with slime oozing out of her ears and nose while he tells her about his plan; a gag during the third act where Prof. Filmore is at a bar and is scared away

by a ghostly Red Sox fan, who then wonders why he's in New York; and a failed attempt by the Ghostbusters to seal the vortex by crossing the streams, like in the original movie. Also, the dance scene that Paul Feig wanted in the movie, where Rowan makes the army, police, and Hawkins and Rourke dance, is back in there, and you still see it behind the credits, too.

Whether you call it Ghostbusters 2016, Ghostbusters: Answer The Call, Paul Feig's Ghostbusters, The Female Ghostbusters, or what have you, there's no denying that this is among the most controversial and polarizing movies ever made, half it being the movie itself and the other half being the actions and agenda of the filmmakers, studio, and media outlets. Although I

can find good things in it, I do feel that, after what Feig, Sony, the cast, and the publications behind the movie did, they deserved for it to crash and burn the way it did. As for the movie itself, many of the characters, be they men or women, are either annoying, dumb, or assholes, the villain is nothing more than a misanthrope who wants to bring about the end of mankind just because he's a loser at life, the cameos from the cast members of the original movie add nothing to it, the humor ranges from being awkward to obnoxious, juvenile, and downright stupid, and overall, there are just bad vibes associated with it, as well as a feeling of being superior to the 1984 original. That said, though, I must reiterate that I do think the movie is technically well-made, looking nice and colorful, as well as big in scope, with the most epic final battle in any of these movies, well-done production design, good visual effects, memorable ghosts, and an okay music score and soundtrack. Overall, had the people behind it not caused such a stink, I think the movie might have ended up being liked by more of the people who saw it, not counting the diehards were going to hate it anyway, and it wouldn't have such a big stain on it. But, because they went down the road did, it just made the genuine problems it has stand out that much more, and thus, it'll probably always remain an ill-advised experiment and an example of how not to reboot a franchise.