Ghost­busters

It’s hard to recall when the repel­lant term ​“fan ser­vice” was first deployed as a way to describe the act of bow­ing down to the demands of the brand elite – those whose judge­ment of a prod­uct might be deemed the most harsh and, thus, the most impor­tant. Some may see it as a benign term, a sign of acknowl­edg­ing pub­lic demand and, if not bend­ing, then lean­ing light­ly towards col­lec­tive will. Yet, it also pos­sess­es an obvi­ous sex­u­al con­no­ta­tion, like you’re allow­ing the enter­prise to be need­less­ly vio­lat­ed by self-appoint­ed ambas­sadors who have con­vinced them­selves that they are able to love a thing (often inan­i­mate) more than anoth­er per­son can. These ​‘fans’ are more com­mon­ly know as avid inter­net users.

You can now play a game of spot the toad­y­ing fan ser­vice, search­ing for those moments that clear­ly don’t belong in a film, which serve no clear func­tion, which are entire­ly unnec­es­sary, but are con­sid­ered a vital deter­rent for the knee-jerk e‑bitching. Of the new Ghost­busters film, there are actu­al, real human peo­ple (like­ly beard­ed) who have claimed that recast­ing the cen­tral line-up of the orig­i­nal film as women is equiv­a­lent to squat­ting over their mis­spent child­hoods and relax­ing any and all of the groin mus­cles. Out­raged pro­gres­sive types, as per usu­al, were left to fight the good fight.

This is a real­ly fun film, and at times very amus­ing. And yet the orig­i­nal series weighs around its neck like some ill-fit­ting phal­lic mill­stone. Attempts to asso­ciate this refresh to the fusty, musty orig­i­nal are almost con­temp­tu­ous in their eye-rolling idio­cy. Cameo appear­ances drop at reg­u­lar inter­vals, evok­ing the same dread surges as when an eccen­tric uncle over­does it on the Schnapps dur­ing Christ­mas lunch and/​or a fam­i­ly wake. Per­haps by stealth, direc­tor Paul Feig has invent­ed a form of bizarro fan ser­vice – namechecks to an orig­i­nal prop­er­ty that actu­al­ly make you ques­tion whether it was any good in the first place. The chem­istry between the four new leads is so great, that any­thing draw­ing you away from enjoy­ing it can be con­sid­ered a ghast­ly offence. Still, got­ta keep the space nerds happy!

What makes this new film work is that it nev­er draws atten­tion to its own ingrained pro­gres­sive­ness. Women star­ring in a sum­mer action movie should not be some­thing that requires self con­grat­u­la­tion, and Feig allows the mate­r­i­al to speak for itself. Its pol­i­tics are for the view­ers to laud, not the mak­ers. This film feels like it’s about some­thing valu­able and rep­re­sents some­thing real. Feig also knows where his strengths lie, and as such, much of the film is giv­en over to com­e­dy titans like Kris­ten Wiig and Melis­sa McCarthy just doing what they do best. It’s rare that in a sum­mer effects movie you’d want to see more idle gab­bing and few­er neon explo­sions, but in this case, it’s the talk that’s golden.

Leslie Jones, superbly cast as a sub­way atten­dant who is moved to join the gang, deliv­ers a star-mak­ing turn as Pat­ty Tolan, but the top trump here, how­ev­er, is the actress Kate McK­in­non as Jil­lian Holtz­mann, the mus­tard-shad­ed sci­ence brain. She is the one com­bustible ele­ment here. It’s like she’s been tele­port­ed in from a sev­en­ties Robert Alt­man movie. Or a female Kramer, the hip­ster doo­fus from Sein­feld. Every time the cam­era is on her, she uses it, some­times with a screwy line read­ing, oth­ers by just mak­ing an expres­sion that looks like she’s exist­ing in a duel real­i­ty. A less­er film might have rel­e­gat­ed her to a sin­gle dose bit play­er, but here she’s allowed not only to shine, but to locate the human­i­ty in her excep­tion­al­ly (almost psy­chot­i­cal­ly) deranged character.

The film neat­ly tees itself up for a sequel, and with tonal issues ironed out and the abil­i­ty to judge what worked (the ban­ter) and what didn’t (the effects), it’ll like­ly be an even more invit­ing prospect. It’s by no means per­fect, and Feig strug­gles when direct­ing any­thing oth­er than inti­mate human com­e­dy, but the cen­tral cast excel, and, unlike the large major­i­ty of main­stream fea­tures, it’s gen­uine­ly fun­ny, inven­tive and clever. Next time, let’s hope the fans being ser­viced are those in love with this supe­ri­or new iter­a­tion, and not the base­ment-dwelling bed­wet­ters who mask their rabid misog­y­ny as inno­cent geek enti­tle­ment and mis­placed nostalgia.