Who you gonna call?

Jones, McCarthy, Wiig & McKinnon in Ghostbusters

I’m generally pretty agnostic about remakes of classic movies. Generally, they don’t do well and I can think of only a couple of examples where the remake is better than the original; maybe the Judy Garland version of A Star is Born, David Cronenberg’s version of The Fly, and John Carpenter’s take on The Thing come quickly to mind but not many more.

That’s okay though. If the remake turns out to be a stinker then the reputation of the original is burnished a little more, if it turns out to be okay – and John Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven is a good example - then the world is all the better for having another good movie out there.

For me, that’s where we are with the new version of Ghostbusters which has gained all sorts of notoriety for its gender reversal casting. That’s not as much of a problem for me as for some, because I’m not a huge fan of the original.

I saw it at a press screening before it was released in 1984. In those pre-internet days, it was all fields round here and you had to make your own hype; you were relying on a trailer and a poster and – incredible as it may seem – you had to form your own opinion.

How did we ever manage without a platoon of infantilised 40-year-olds sitting in their mothers’ basements telling us what to think? Hard as it may seem, we got by. I liked Ghostbusters, it made me laugh at all the right places, I left feeling happy, and gave it a decent review.

For me it was never a classic, just a good film. Recasting it with women doesn’t bother me in the slightest, least of all when they are four of the funniest actors around. I yield to no one in my admiration of Melissa McCarthy, Kirsten Wiig is as smart as a whip, and Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones have been killing it on Saturday Night Live for years. This is a no-brainer for me, in fact it’s pretty much a dream team.

The new version is not exactly a remake but the story moves along similar lines. Manhattan is threatened by a ghostly invasion from occult dimensions and it falls to four paranormal investigators in slate-grey boiler suits with unfathomable technology to save the day. And of course they do.

In the process they acquire a himbo assistant – a nicely self-deprecating Chris Hemsworth turn – and all but one of the original Ghostbusters cast turn up to provide a seal of approval. There are more Easter eggs here than you can shake a stick at but if you haven’t seen the first film they don’t get in the way.

Is it perfect? Of course not. The action scenes are a little lifeless and by the numbers but that’s not what director Paul Feig does. Also, the stuff that we associate with Feig – the sisterly bonding from Bridesmaids and The Heat – is mostly missing here. I could have done with the Ghostbusters having a bit more bonding, especially since the film is co-written by Parks and Recreation writer Katie Dippold.

On the plus side the script is generally sharp, the film is fun, and the performances from all four women are spot on; McKinnon and Jones in particular seize their chance for stardom with both hands. It made me laugh and, occasionally, laugh out loud which is all you can ask for from a comedy.

Those of you who are still holding up the original – you know, the one which starts with pervy thirtysomething Bill Murray hitting on a teenage college student – as some kind of paragon need to get over yourselves. Or start a retrospective campaign against the cartoon version which turned Harold Ramis into a bleached blonde and Slimer into Scrappy Doo.

When it comes to the new version, to paraphrase one of Murray's lines from the first one: “They came, they saw….they kicked its ass!”