Review: Ghostbusters, starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones

Women turn the tables on men in this Ghostbusters reboot, but the joke is still on the paranormal villains.

Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, Kristen Wiig and Leslie Jones in Ghostbusters.

Ghostbusters (PG), national release. Score: 3.5 out of 5

George Orwell was a bit of a prophet, but had he been able to see even further ahead he might have tweaked one of the famous lines in Nineteen Eighty-Four: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a ghost face — forever.’’ The original Ghostbusters came out in 1984 and its sequel five years later, both directed by Ivan Reitman. Now we have a fast-paced, fun-filled, female-charged reboot, with the talented Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones taking over ghost-stomping duties from Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and the other boys.

There’s still a man in charge of Ghostbusters, though: director Paul Feig, who worked with McCarthy on the 2011 hit Bridesmaids (which also starred Wiig) and the police and espionage comedies The Heat (2013) and Spy (2015). He’s a filmmaker who works with funny women.

There’s been a bit of debate over the feminisation of such a well-known movie, which Feig seems to anticipate with a deft joke early on, as the would-be ghostbusters check their online profile. “Ain’t no bitches gonna hunt no ghosts,’’ declares one troller.

There’s a challenge in remaking such a popular film. For a start, the audience is more layered than usual. There are people who saw Ghostbusters as teenagers and still remember most of the dialogue (I work with a few of them), people a bit older who saw it, liked it but don’t remember it in detail and even — I believe this is true — people who have never seen it.

Ghostbuster Kate McKinnon.

Fieg, who wrote the script with Katie Dippold (who wrote The Heat), approached this challenge sensibly, saying his plan was to “tell a story you haven’t seen before. Or tell a story you’ve seen before, but in a way you haven’t seen it.” So while there are in-jokes for diehard Ghostbusters fans and cameo roles for Murray, Aykroyd and others, including a few of the original ghosts, it’s also an enjoyable supernatural comedy for one and all. It’s a bit scarier than the original, with some of the ghosts nasty, but as the PG rating suggests, nothing to faint over.

The film opens with a haunted house scene in New York City. We soon meet science academic Erin Gilbert (Wiig), who used to believe in ghosts and still does deep down, paranormal researchers Abby Yates (McCarthy) and Jillian Holtzman (McKinnon), who is the ghost-fighting gadget designer. The three unite after their day jobs go sour and are joined by subway worker Patty Tolan (Jones). All four are humorous, especially the zany Holtzman.

They hire a handsome and dim receptionist named Kevin (a wonderful Chris Hemsworth, who keeps his Australian accent). The scenes where the four women try to tame Kevin — to answer the phone and such — are a highlight, one that shows women and men can be funny together. Kevin’s character does change towards the end, in a story-defining way.

The Ghostbusters, as the media calls them, are also aware of a possible spectre-rousing villain, Rowan (Neil Casey), who perhaps gives himself away with his first line about how humanity walks through sewage and needs to be cleaned up. The NYC mayor (Andy Garcia) is another problem. So we have the Ghostbusters and Kevin taking on just about everyone, alive and undead. Are they just “incredibly sad, lonely women’’, as the mayor’s office calls them, or city-saving superheroes?

You’ll find out in the energetic end sequence, which makes clever use of the cute Ghostbusters logo and leaves the door wide open for a sequel. As Abby tells childhood friend Erin at one point, “This is what we dreamed about since we were little kids.’’