Video of the Week: Ghostbusters 2016. No Review. I refuse (by Cinemassacre)

Cinemassacre’s video on the new Ghostbusters movie sparked a lot of controversy across the internet. People were claiming that he’s not open minded enough, whereas other people are saying that they understand his point of view.

In the video, he doesn’t actually say that he dislikes the film, he explains why he won’t go and see it out of love for the original series. That I can relate to. I’m not usually a fussy person when it comes to films, I’ll sit down and watch pretty much anything that people either recommend or that I find interesting, and then construct an opinion afterwards, whether I enjoyed it or not. When a film has been bashed by the critics, but somebody recommends it to me and explains why they like it, then I’ll give that film a chance. I don’t usually take critics' opinions first, I usually keep an open mind until after I’ve watched the film, then agree with the critics or not. An example of this is the two films, Epic Movie, and Disaster Movie. On IMDB (Internet Movie Database), Epic Movie scored 2.3/10 based on 88,835 public reviews, and Disaster Movie, scored 1.9/10 based on 74,162 public reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, Epic Movie scored 2%, and Disaster Movie scored 1%. Those are some pretty low scores. This sparked my curiosity. How can two films score such low scores. I decided to sit down and watch them, and might I say that those reviews are not wrong. Those two films are so bad that I struggled to sit through the entire film. The comedy was bland, unoriginal, and doesn’t make any sense. They don’t have a storyline, they just have a bunch of poorly constructed sketches that try and be what they are parodying, but are actually just showing off their failed attempt to do anything less than just be a cash grab. I will admit that they are some strong reviews, but I wouldn’t have been able to have those reviews if it weren’t for me sitting down and seeing what those two films are all about.

I can understand why people are angry that Cinemassacre isn’t going to watch the film, because he cannot generate any opinions if he’s going to boycott it completely. It is similar to saying that you dislike baked beans if you haven’t tried them yet. How do you know. In a way I am glad that I did watch those two films, so that my opinion has some more weight behind it. I can speak from experience, because it would be a lot harder to express myself if I haven’t seen them. All I could do then was just bouncing off other people’s reviews, which isn’t original at all.

Cinemassacre then went on to explain something that I can understand. He grew up with the previous two Ghostbusters movies. The first one took audiences by surprise. The visual effects were extraordinary, especially back then and even today when technology has come a long way, the effects in that movie still take us by surprise. The second one, whilst not as big of a hit compared to the first, still hooked us in. Both movie’s storylines were solid throughout: Funny when they need to be and serious when they need to be. The first film became an instant classic, and the second was close behind.

He then explains how the third film was constantly being kicked around without ever being hit into some sort of goal. Many discussions were had, but nothing actually came to be a third Ghostbusters movie. Some fans were disappointed that they won’t be able to see the characters on screen again, whereas some were relieved as they felt that another film may have ruined the franchise.

Some of the dislike towards the new film comes from the public’s love for the original series. If they want to see a new Ghostbusters movie, they want to see the original cast, not new ones.

Cinemassacre then goes on to explain why he felt as if they should have added a sub-title instead of leaving it as plain Ghostbusters as now we have to strictly identify which is which. There have been many reboots that have taken the same name as the original instead of distinguishing between the two: Robocop, True Grit, The Thing, and Ocean’s Eleven, to name a few. Out of all those reboots, only Ghostbusters has sparked this much hate. Robocop, as classic as the first film was, didn’t get near as much hate as Ghostbusters is getting. Why is Ghostbusters getting more hate than any of the other films?

Well, I think I’ve already answered that. People want to see the original cast members back, not new ones. Cinemassacre pitched a good idea that I can agree with, which is the original cast members reprise their roles, only to pass the mantle of Ghostbusters a group of people who are younger than they are, sparking a new generation of ghostbusting.

This film has already fallen into the same trap that the prequel trilogy of Star Wars has: People know that it exists, but they are refusing to acknowledge it as part of the main franchise. As far as they are concerned, the prequel trilogy isn’t Star Wars. The same is with this, the fans of the original series know that it exists, but as being a part of the original franchise, that is what they are refusing to acknowledge.

For all we know, the film may actually be better than we are expecting it to be – trailers nowadays aren’t that good with showing off a movie without either spoiling the entire movie, or showing a bunch of random clips that actually don’t make sense even for trailer standards – so there’s still hope. I want to keep an open mind about the film, I don’t want all this controversy to get inside my head and warp my opinions of it before I see it, but I don’t know if I actually want to, considering I am one of those people that do love the original two films.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)