Also, I'm a huge fan of the original ghostbusters (I watched it on VHS so many times I burned through 2 tapes).
That being said, I'm going to be as honest as I can about this movie using an exercise we used to use when I was in college called "Good, Bad, ugly". Basically the good points and bad points, but also the "ugly". Which, the "ugly" are parts that were atrocious of cringe-worthy that just broke immersion or slowed and hurt the movie overall.
The Good:
Chemistry between characters and actresses was seamless. The characters were believable, expressed themselves and had that sort of "geeky" quality to them you'd expect. I was very worried that the biggest issue would be them trying to replace the original ghost-busters, because trying to replace the chemistry between the A-list comedians they had in Ghostbusters original would have been impossible. But, they managed to do it very well. Also, the VFX were completly amazing and the end credit sequence itself deserves mention because I've never seen one done as well. And the battle they did in downtown New York was epicly well done.
The Bad:
There wasn't too much "bad" with the movie. There were some "eh" jokes and it wasn't Laugh Out Loud for 5 minutes funny, but it was definitely humorous. They tried too force a few too many things sometimes (the chinese food joke got old pretty quickly), but overall it was a "mostly" solid script.
The Ugly:
I think the biggest problem in the entire film, was the 40 minutes that too place from 20 minutes in, to about 60 minutes in. The first 20 minutes were pretty good and we good at establishing the characters. However, the next 40 minutes make me cringe more than all but the most special of snowflakes on the highest of RP servers. What made it cringe worthy is that they spent so much time getting "close but not quite" to what the ghostbusters would be. Super close with a logo, but not exactly there. Same with a motto, flyers, everything was just a tiny bit off. And that tiny bit off without the payout was enough to just piss all over your cereal. Because if they removed those 40 minutes, it would have been a GREAT movie, possibly on part with at least Ghostbusters 2.
Overall, I think that had they spent less time trying to fiddle their way around becoming the Ghostbusters and just took up the name and logo earlier, they'd have had more time for ghost fighting and it would have made the movie MUCH better overall. Really, the journey the characters made through the movie was very interesting, except for the 40 minutes of total suck in the middle of the film. If you can get past it, it's a pretty good movie. Also, I think the BEST thing to happen to this, would be a franchise, so they wouldn't have to dance around the plot for 40 minutes.
BOTTOM LINE:
It wasn't good, it wasn't bad, it was "Ok". I left not wanting to buy it on DVD, but not feeling like I wasted money.
I give it 6 Danny Devitos out of 10.
