Ghostbusters (2016) Movie Review

Ghostbusters (sometimes known as Ghostbusters: Answer the Call) is a 2016 comedy horror movie directed and co-written by Paul Feig, with help from screenwriter Katie Dippold. It stars comedy actresses from TV and movies that were popular at the time like Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon and MCU star Chris Hemsworth. The film came after a long and drawn-out attempt, or several attempts, to make a third Ghostbusters movie that went basically nowhere. So it was met with skepticism when a brand new twist was implemented: an all female cast. The well-known controversy began, which for a lot of people marked the beginning of the so-called "culture war" on a major scale than before as the release of the trailer brought up some rather awkward and bewildering conversations online, something that spilled to the mainstream media.

The film follows Doctor Erin Gilbert, a former scientist interested in the supernatural but now turned University professor, reunites with her old friend Doctor Abby Yates, her partner in paranormal investigation who had a fall out with Erin after she disavowed her unorthodox line of work to be more conventional and rational. Abby now works with physicist Jillian "Holtz" Holtzmann on her projects and wants to republish the old book she co-authored with Erin, who is convinced by Abby to investigate a real paranormal occurrence, reigniting their love for ghost-hunting and friendship. Transportation worker Patty Tolan joins the team as well as their business is put on the media spotlight. Meanwhile, a haunting menace has nefarious plans for New York.

It's been ten years since this reboot or requel (?) of the Ghostbusters franchise was released and became a notoriously hated movie among geeks and internet users. The controversy the trailer ignited accompanied it to its very release date. I remember being on IMDB on thursday and as soon as ratings became available people started giving it low scores, they were review-bombing it before even getting a chance to see it. I became uninterested in the whole thing and waited until family members watched it when it was released on home video. My thoughts back then? It was mediocre and mostly a mixed bag. My opinion now? Not that different. I have a less harsh attitude towards it but I still think it has the flaws many comedies suffered from back then and even today.

Without comparing it to the first movie (a film I am not crazy about to begin with), I can say that the comedy itself seems to fall into the mechanically quirky improv style comedians applied to just about every piece of media they did after Judd Apatow movies got popular. A lot of emphasis is put on being weird, odd characters trying to act crazy or behaving in unorthodox ways but there's very little contrast when these things happen, every character seems to be peculiar, armed with quips, and a lot of the dialogue seems to be interchangeable. The improv aspect is overdone as some scenes are extended slightly longer than they should have been or for way too long. This breaks any controlled pace the film could have had and instead turns it into a brief riffing session that goes out of rails just enough to throw off the timing a lot of the time. The length is also way too excessive for a comedy, of any kind. 

I will also say that while there's nothing wrong with crass humor the way some mainstream movies used it was either too tame or just baffling, for a cheap laugh without much else going on. However, in this movie I found it to be quite decently implemented. I remembered it being much less effective in my first watch years ago, but now I think the delivery was on point sometimes. Besides, this was at the time when more risky comedies with women were being done in Hollywood and I assume it was part of the backlash to some degree.

When it comes to the characters I think they all work fairly well, they do take on the roles the original team had but they aren't just imitations of the original characters, the girls have different personalities even if their narrative and practical roles are somewhat similar. The continuity with the franchise doesn't bother me either so I never had a problem with its place in the timeline and I thought the cameos were alright as well. The special effects do look relatively plastic and completely lack any weight or interesting art direction even if they are technically well done when it comes to CGI. The sludge effects, the textures and the lighting they apply to the ghosts are just not quite there, they look stale and too cartoony to achieve the contrast the first film had, like a forgettable version of the monsters from Scooby Doo 2. It goes for a full-on lite cartoon tone. I guess that's not out of place for a comedy but a lot of potential is lost by defanging the horror elements.

Overall, It's a heavily flawed movie that can be sort of a guilty pleasure if you wanna turn your brain off and just put it on the background for an alright time. It's light entertainment without much else going for it, but it has enough moments of laughter that work to be worth one watch if you are curious. 

D.E.B.S (2003-2004) Movie Review

D.E.B.S is a 2004 action spy comedy movie written and directed by Angela Robinson and based on her short film from 2003. The film stars Sara Foster, Jordana Brewster, Meagan Good, Devon Aoki, Jill Ritchie, Michael Clarke Duncan and Jessica Cauffiel. Robinson began the project as a comic book, doing the art herself during college. POWER UP then gave her $20,000 in order to do a short film and pitch the idea to a studio. The original 2003 film was a short subject filled with color, very frenetic and action-packed, it was also shot on film, something that was ditched when moving onto the feature film department, opting to go for a digital look instead. While the film did badly at the box office and got a less than stellar reception it became a cult hit among queer audiences as the years went by.

A secret test recruits female students for the D.E.B.S. (Discipline, Energy, Beauty, Strength) organization, this paramilitary academy takes care of dangerous spy missions. We follow four D.E.B.S, Max, Janet, Dominique and Amy, as they foil the plans of a villainess known as Lucy Diamond, this supercriminal accidentally begins a relationship with Amy after a failed date. Now Amy must choose between her loyalty to D.E.B.S and her love for Lucy.

I gotta give it to this movie because it takes very refreshing and new twists that you won't really expect out of a movie like this. Usually a movie like this would be an origin story as the protagonist gets into the D.E.B.S program, maybe reluctantly, and gets introduced to the spy world while having to carry a mission and save the world. Maybe there's a romantic interest in the form of a tech guy who is handsome or something. That's typically how it would go, it's a template that exists. However, this movie is nothing like that. You are thrown into a strange but likable universe where everything has already been established and the initial exposition scenes explaining the concept of D.E.B.S is all you get in the form of context in order to follow the narrative that follows, which is a lighthearted lesbian relationship building itself among two girls in the middle of two antagonistic forces, the bad girl falls in love with the girl from the good side. Nothing groundbreaking but there's charm to the fact that it's not only a mainstream movie but also because of how it plays with the genre.

What could be a problem is just how bold it is by dropping you in the middle of this world without proper guidance, the information that you need is there, but you don't really get to connect with any character immediately because everything goes by so fast and the characters themselves aren't given much to stand out aside from some small character quirks that don't really flesh them out but simply give you a vague impression of who these girls could be. Further rewatches diminish these flaws though. A couple of the DEBS girls escape this as the main conflict progresses but for the most part they are one note. Another thing is that the villainess assassin doesn't immediately look the part, so it can catch you off guard just how average she looks and how pedestrian this spy and assassin world comes off as.

With this being one of the first major films shot on digital cameras you kind of get some rather unpolished or TV-level images, the quality isn't really terrible but the resolution and the frame rate will make it look slightly more cheap and poor when compared to movies shot on film. The technology wasn't quite there and this was one of the early entries in that category so it's excusable that a few shots maybe aren't up to par, especially whenever a green screen is involved. Other than that, it's not a badly composed or shot film, the director manages to organize everything inside the frame in a stylish way and the way the action sequences are shot do have some momentum and rhythm, there's a lot of energy behind them and they don't rely too heavily on CGI at this point. I gotta say that there's a limited amount of shootouts and fights, so don't expect any kind of astounding spectacle. It's nothing as explosive as the 2000's Charlie's Angels movies but it's also not as clunky as some of the bottom of the barrel stuff could be.

When it comes to the execution of the material this one has an interesting perspective since the director mostly plays it like a very earnest relationship film with innovative gender and sexual dynamics that just happens to have both spy film elements and romcom elements. It could have been seen as exploitative with the girls in schoolgirl uniforms and such but the quirky humor and the fact that it never sexualizes the girls kind of keep it from feeling dirty or sleazy. Aside from some adult conversations this could have been a Disney Channel movie to be honest.

A highly recommended piece of 2000’s camp that will surely be a comfort film for many. 

Pink Force Commando (1982) Movie Review

Pink Force Commando (Hong fen you xia, Ninja Fighters, Pink Force) is an action adventure martial arts Hong Kong film directed by Kevin Chu (Chu Yen-ping). It stars Brigitte Lin, Sally Yeh, Chung-You Chang, Yang Hui-Shan, Chun-Chun Hsu and Hao-Yi Liu. It is sometimes considered to be a semi-sequel to Golden Queen's Commando (1982) by the same producer and crew. It's also a film that collects a variety of mixed components from fantasy and genre cinema as a whole.

Three female bandits steal a great amount of gold and some time later the other two find out their leader, Jackal, has used the money for her own pleasure and businesses. She has paired up with her Nazi Commander lover and now wants her old partners dead.

Like Golden Queen's Commando here we have a mixture of genre components and narrative scenarios that are mishmashed, taken from other movies and then put into a blender, only to change the protagonists of the stories to a diverse group of action girls dressed in striking and contrasting outfits in order to be easily identifiable. This time we have the usual thugs but also Nazi officers, cowboys, Klansmen and magical heroines as well, it's a seemingly never-ending list of bizarre mashups that pay off in one climactic grand battle. 

As I mentioned before, the movie takes not only inspiration from stuff we have seen in other movies but it also features a variety of scenes taken directly from Golden Queen's Commando and spliced into the movie in a haphazard manner, always in a manner so clumsy that the quality of the footage itself is mismatched and contrasts highly from the footage that's original to this movie. Scenes like the card game trick, the primal wrestling match and the drunken samurai's humiliation were put into the movie but they come out of nowhere and have really nothing to do with the rest of the movie, seeming completely disconnected from their original context. Not only that but we also have music that's stolen from movies like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), Conan the Barbarian (1982) and even Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970). The former and the latter movies being scored by Ennio Morricone isn't a surprise since Queen's Commando did this as well, so at least these two flicks have some bangers music-wise.

The storytelling is about as flawed as you would expect but also eclectic and fun for a film made under such a weird production process and carefree attitude. The plot takes insane twists and detours to the point where a good amount of it becomes nearly incomprehensible and borderline ludicrous once the footage from Queen's Commando shows up to confuse you even more. I wouldn't want to be the poor bastard who watched this movie before Queen's Commando and without any clue as to how this film was made because that must have been a truly strange experience. Nothing is well glued and events rarely connect coherently, you pretty much have to put together the entirety of the film in your head, being able to identify the important moments and plot points by the way the film conveys which point of the story you are technically in, for example, you know you are at the climax because there's a great battle with two opposing armies about to take place.

I gotta say that by having much of the same cast we are able to witness some badass performances by the actresses and the wonderful stunt work during the fights. The leading ladies from this movie are not that interesting as characters, when compared to a very solid and perfectly defined roster of tough girls like the one from Queen's Commando, but the core idea of the movie is quite interesting as a jumping off point to then stick a good amount of crazy scenes after the introduction.

It's a fun time if you know what you are getting into. Only recommended for Z-grade actionsploitation film fans.