SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL had a budget of (probably)
160 million American dollars. It raked in $48 million in the national release,
with another $116 million overseas. Dead on arrival it wasn’t, but it certainly
bled out as the weeks progressed. Over the years it’s become increasingly
difficult to discover a perfect comparison film, as the criteria used is
perpetually stretched to the limits for the sake of the skewed chuckle this
annual event has become. Thankfully, 2016 offered up the best thing SPEED 2
Month has had on its plate since INDIANA
JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, and it’s a whopper.
It
has long been the hope of certain film fans that director Ivan Reitman would
gather together the three comedic writer/actors and one journeyman once more,
as he had done in 1984 with much, much success. Sure, he did it again in 1989,
but most people agree that the sequel was just a little lacking. Would it
happen? Could it? Most of the actors agreed at one point or another that none
would do it, though that changed time and again, particularly as nostalgia
films became the go-to for Hollyweird in hopeful buckets of cash for little
effort. GHOSTBUSTERS was not going
to happen as fans and internet critics wanted, especially after incomparable writer
Harold Ramis passed away far too soon.
This
past Saturday, I had a few hours to kill and avoid the heat before a work
shift, so I chose to utilize the time wisely, by discovering something worthy
for this ridiculous column. (Hundreds of years from now, people will go to the
grave site of John Amenta and wonder at the epitaph: “He liked SPEED 2”.) The newest GHOSTBUSTERS
film is not a sequel, not a new chapter, and not even liked long before it got
finished. Most readers are already going to be aware of the hate spewed out on
the interwebz regarding the rebooted story, with all new characters and a
wholly female main cast, so delving into that won’t forward this and most
assuredly will just bore us all.
This
new GHOSTBUSTERS had a budget of
$144 million. At present, it’s collected about $50 million in its opening
weekend, with another $15 million overseas. It’ll likely break the $200 million
mark, not quite the hit all had expected and certainly not the smash that the
original was. I am not here to compare the new version to the original, though.
It’s been viewed to attempt to best SPEED 2 as the worst movie of all time
(that I’ve seen, with a bloated budget). The new GHOSTBUSTERS does it’s very hardest to become Lord of the Midden
Heap, but just can’t quite claim it, however much it may want to.
Now,
I saw the trailers long before the movie came out and found them unfunny and
almost horrifyingly bad at trying to get me in the theatre. As the last film I
watched on the silver screen was originally released in 1940, you can see how
little I go. After all the hubbub and stupidity regarding the movie had long
driven me to drink terribly named liquors, I decided to go watch the movie and prove
that it wasn’t nearly as bad as the trailers made it out to be. Yes, I went in
with eyes open and brain shut off. After an hour in that theatre, I was texting
John Amenta to tell him I wanted to leave.
The
movie actually starts quite well, with a cold open that had me laughing out
loud to Zach Woods’ tour guide in a historical New York mansion. Kristen Wiig
had me chuckling and quite happy to watch as her performance, at least in the
opening shots, was entertaining and funny. Enter Melissa McCarthy, who pretty
much irritates from the second she appears, and quirky Kate McKinnon, who
either annoys you or not as she chaotically explores the camera space during
every shot. Essentially, as the movie progresses, it gets more and more
annoying. This is a note I took while watching the movie, at a particularly facepalming
moment: “clumsy, unmitigated mess of pithy lines and reaction shots”. This
movie is just a series of tropes, with a terribly thin framework of a story lifted
from the original script. It’s horribly acted, it’s loaded with terribly
unfunny jokes, it’s chock full of “Easter Eggs” for the obnoxiously loud fans
of the original movie in hopes to make them all shut the hell up, and it’s just
not that good. Much of what occurs is nearly slapstick in nature, which irks
me. If you’re going to do slapstick, just go all the way, don’t give me half-assed.
I wanted to call the movie a big cartoon, but that would be doing a disservice
to the Real Ghostbusters cartoon of
the 1980’s. I spent nine bucks on this hideous movie in the afternoon and it
just had me in pain… which was probably due to my hair pulling, but hey. It’s
that bad of a film.
I
have to place the majority of the blame on the writers and the director, Paul
Feig. Feig has some kind of director-ly love relationship with Melissa McCarthy,
which is fine, if he could get some sort of pathos out of her at some point. The
constant close ups of characters or shots of other cast members as someone else
is speaking off camera is a nightmare of filmmaking. Get the name of that
editor and make sure they get their job at the Dairy Queen back; they’re going
to need it. This movie blows. It’s bad. I was slapping my face in shock, it
gradually got so bad. Still, it’s no SPEED
2. Some of the effects are good, as are the sets. It starts good, which SPEED 2 doesn’t do. It has a few laugh
out loud moments and it has tons of guest appearances, which are fun, even if
they sometimes burden the overall story. To be specific, this is a freshman
effort from people that are much better than this movie grants the viewer. Bad,
people. All of you feel my virtual hand slap. Feel it? Good. Now do yourself a
favor and go watch GHOSTBUSTERS 2,
which is better than this over examined, eyesore of a movie.
(No,
I’m not ignoring Leslie Jones’ participation – she’s really new to film and is
quite funny at times elsewhere. I expect she’ll get more parts after this but I’m
not expecting Angela Bassett-level ability from her. The movie really, really
fails her character, which could have been a much more interesting part, given
a better director.)
