The new ‘Ghostbusters’ is just another big-budget comedy with a dozen laughs

When it was first announced that Hollywood was going to do a remake of the iconic 1980’s comedy “Ghostbusters,” it was met with howls of outrage. Why? Well, in addition to tampering with a supposed classic, the filmmaker was also going to make the Ghostbusters women.

“Sacrilege!” cried the naysayers. So virulent was the reaction that the subsequent trailer for the film has earned more than 900,000 thumbs down, making it the most disliked trailer in YouTube history.

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Ironically, it turns out that the most interesting thing about this new “Ghostbusters” is the fact the leads are women. Otherwise, the film is just another amiable enough, big-budget comedy with a dozen of so good laughs, a couple of decent action scenes, and a few slick special effects. The female leads give the film a much-needed hint of subversiveness.

The film even addresses their internet troll issue head on when in one scene the Ghostbusters check their business’s Facebook page. It’s full of nasty comments they read out loud, like “Ain’t no b****** gonna hunt no ghosts.” (That got a good laugh at the screening I attended) The women just snort.

They endure other snarky cracks about their gender periodically throughout the film, like mocking references to “Eat Pray Love” empowerment, but for the most part, the women just carry on with the business at hand, killing ghosts.

I’m sure it’s no coincidence that most of the men in the film are jerks. The villain is a sniveling little man-boy, of course, and even Bill Murray, one of the original Ghostbusters, plays an insufferably sexist ghost-debunker. They both get their comeuppance in due time.

And perhaps most pointedly of all, Chris Hemsworth plays an impossibly hunky receptionist for the women Ghostbusters. He’s basically a walking dumb blond joke, who’s so self-absorbed he can’t even take a proper phone message without confusing “ghost” with “goat.”

I don’t want to make this movie sound like a feminist screed. It’s nothing of the sort. It’s every bit as goofy and lightweight as the original. But having four female leads, a real rarity in Hollywood does change the dynamic ever so slightly.

In one telling scene, a weighty Godzilla-like ghost is marching through Manhattan grabbing and smashing everything in his wake, when lead Ghostbuster Melissa McCarthy shouts out the command, “Hey, let’s loosen his grip!” With that, all four lady Ghostbusters stand together, raise their weapons in unison, and fire simultaneously … right into the giant’s crotch. It gets a big laugh. Message received loud and clear.

Just what ghosts exactly are these women slaying?