I just went to see this movie. I expected it to be at least somewhat good – I consider myself a decent judge of AUs, for obvious reasons, and what I’d already seen of this one had led me to believe it was going to be at least acceptable.
What I did not expect was for it to be FREAKING AWESOME. Seriously, I’d even go so far as to say it was nearly as good as the original Ghostbusters movie. It’s very much a farther-out AU, in that the characters aren’t really a direct parallel to the characters in the original. The little homages to the original movies and the animated series were plentiful, but not intrusive; ditto for the cameos, which were very well done, all of them being characters that legitimately belonged in the scenes they were in and did not feel shoehorned in.* There was even a very subtle ‘cameo’ for Harold Ramis (to whom the movie is also dedicated), which you might miss if you aren’t paying attention during the opening act. All in all, I did not find one cringe-worthy moment in this new Ghostbusters movie, I thought it was extremely well written and well acted, and I fully intend to watch it again. Repeatedly. While hoping for a sequel.
Oh, you wanted more? You wanted…spoilers? Well, maybe I could…
Okay! I can give you a few minor spoilers – just enough to hopefully tempt you into seeing the movie for yourself.
- If you are a GoT person, Tywin Lannister is in this movie. No idea if his character made any telling references because I am not a GoT person and so wouldn’t have caught them.
- They got in a nice dig at the ridiculous state of rent in NYC when the not-quite-Ghostbusters went looking for a place to set up shop – the realtor shows them the firehouse (yes, the firehouse) and tells them it’s $21K a month. Erin tells her to find them a cheaper place.
- Kevin is not the character you think he is; Kevin is a complete idiot, and he is hilarious. Kudos to Chris Hemsworth for pulling it off, because all the really silly bits belong to him and if they’d been badly done Kevin would have ended up being this movie’s Jar-Jar Binks. By the end of the movie, I think the girls are just keeping him as a pet.
- That part where you saw Holtzmann lick her ‘gun’ in the clips? Those aren’t guns, they’re a pair of proton whips she has built into her pack. And yes, seeing them in action was damned impressive and now I want a poster of her for my wall.
- Slimer does make an appearance in this movie, starting out as the nameless gluttonous ghost from 1984’s Ghostbusters and then becoming much more reminiscent of Slimer from the later spinoff cartoons by the end of his run through the scenery.
- Do stay in your seat through the credits, because there’s a deleted scene of Possessed!Kevin that plays through a good portion of them, a lot of which is him dancing. If he’d had a pole, I’m pretty sure the other actors would have been throwing singles at him.
- Yes, I’m pretty sure Jillian was trying to flirt with Erin. And it was cute. 🙂
- The apres-credits scene is one last homage to the original movie, and also sort of a teaser hinting that more spirit-related badness is already going on in NYC.
As many of you already know, I am a huge fan of the original 1984 movie and of The Real Ghostbusters. I did my best to go into this new version with an open mind, but I certainly didn’t expect to walk out loving it. So far as AUs go, I couldn’t have asked for one that was more perfectly executed – or better written, better acted, or with better special effects. This movie made me laugh, made me jump more than once, and almost made me cry when they saw the buildings lit up (nope, not giving you more of a hint than that). It’s a great movie, you should go see it.
And yes, of course there will be fic. 😉
* Okay, Sigourney Weaver’s cameo felt a little shoehorned in, but it also added an interesting extra character to that universe who could end up being usable in future stories, so I think it balances out.