Girls v. ghosts

From the moment this all-female reboot of Ghostbusters was announced, the fan-boy panic set in: where will it end? An all-female Top Gun? Will it make me pregnant? Who are these ‘women’? Where do they come from? Are they a recent thing? Do we know any? If it’s proved they can carry big Hollywood comedies, how will they ever be stopped?

Such vitriol had to be coming from a sexist place as films are rebooted all the time and superheroes are endlessly — Batman can’t bend down to pull up his socks without being rebooted — yet they don’t provoke hate. Plus, it’s not as if remaking a film erases the earlier one. You can purchase the 1984 original on DVD for £3.99 and watch Bill Murray salivating over Sigourney Weaver all you like, and also cuddle it as you go to sleep, if you’ve a mind. So the outcry was misogynistic, certainly, and while the best comeback would be to say this a riot, a blast, a hoot and hilarious, the trouble is, it isn’t. It’s only just about OK, which is a blow, I admit. I may even be quite gutted.

As directed by Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, Spy, The Heat), who co-wrote with Katie Dippold (The Heat), the film stars Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon in the major roles, while Leslie Jones plays the black one you have to have on board. (In the original, it was Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson as the black one you have to have; times don’t change that much.) The narrative sticks closely to the original as three scientists (McCarthy, Wiig, McKinnon) are booted out of their academic establishments because of their belief in the paranormal.