Melissa McCarthy

Ghostbusters (2016)

Director: Paul Feig (2016) BBFC cert 12A

This supernatural reboot rakes over the bones of the 1984 comedy classic but fails to scare up the fun.

 Being bravely recast with an all female team has resulted in a ferocious online furore. However this gender switching is nothing new to Hollywood, it worked super successfully for Rosalind Russell in screwball comedy His Girl Friday (1940) and you don’t have to go that far back for other examples. Last year Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) gave a turbo charged reboot to that ’80’s franchise by putting the women in the driving seat.

This is very funny and scary. But only for the first five minutes before the new team turn up. From then on it’s sadly an indulgent Melissa McCarthy vehicle loaded up with CGI to paper over the holes in the weak script.

This is very much her movie and on a par with her recent The Boss (2016) and less fun than the similarly spooky Jack Black caper Goosebumps (2016).

Once again New York is awash with ectoplasm and evil spirits as the apocalypse approaches and only the Ghostbusters team of paranormal investigators can prevent it.

McCarthy and Kristen Wiig star as scientists Abby and Erin. They go into business as paranormal investigators after losing their university jobs.

Pushed into the background, poor Kate McKinnon is forced to gurn for attention as Jillian, the inventor of the teams ghoul catching gadgets.

She’s given a dance scene, an action moment and a speech, and all are great. However they feel more like ‘a bit for the trailer’ or a guilty ‘we’d better give her something to do’ than organic character reveals. McKinnon is easily best in show and I wish she’d been put front and centre.

Leslie Jones is subway worker Patty who sees a ghost and inexplicably joins up. She shouts most of her lines, probably in order to get noticed. Enough has been said about the fact there are three white scientists and one black transport worker. This isn’t a result of malicious intent but a foolish and avoidable lack of script oversight.

The dull villain played by Neil Casey is a self proclaimed genius called Rowan. He’s a janitor who wants to bring forth the apocalypse as revenge on an uncaring world.

Despite some familiar locations, New York is curiously underpopulated and never seems like a living metropolis. This neuters a threat which is never set higher than Def Con Scooby Doo.

Given far more to do than his equivalent in the first film, Chris Hemsworth has a great time at our expense as a dimwitted secretary called Kevin. He’s employed on the basis he looks like Chris Hemsworth. This is fine but is one of many underdeveloped ideas.

Other wasted opportunities include the new Ghostmobile being a hearse and having a ghost chasing scene in a death metal concert. These are starting points not jokes in themselves and are left hanging, waiting for a punchline that never arrives.

Andy Garcia’s city mayor is a character in search of a purpose. He’s picked off the nostalgia shelf  in a tick box exercise to keep the fans happy.

This is an origin story of how the gang get together. In order to eke out some sentiment it fleshes out character backstory the first didn’t feel the need to possess.

One character muses why she joined the team. Never mind the supernatural stuff, this is the real mystery that is never explained.

There’s an unfunny running gag about Chinese food which has no purpose except to indulge McCarthy’s showboating and prolong her screen time.

If because of your attachment to the original film you’re pleased this isn’t a glowing review, then you’re an idiot. No material is safe from being resurrected, rebooted or recycled, no matter how precious it is to you personally.

Plus the deficit of female led high profile films in Hollywood needs to be addressed and I would have loved the opportunity to sing the praises of a great piece of work. My fear is this weak effort may stifle the production of other potential projects.

I enjoyed McCarthy and Feig’s Spy (2015) though Bridesmaids (2011) was over praised. If you thought those were hilarious you may enjoy Ghostbusters (2016) more than I did.

Lacking the sly wit of the original but borrowing the familiar logo, costumes, equipment, theme song, dialogue and story, this adds slapstick and feels like a collection of undercooked tribute sketches happy to coast on the personality of the performers.

Original cast members Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson and Annie Potts are among the cameos. But by the time Sigourney Weaver turns up, my interest had long since given up the ghost.

★★☆☆☆

@ChrisHunneysett

 

 

Central Intelligence

Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber (2016)

In every sense the world’s biggest movie star, Dwayne Johnson’s huge charisma, charm and frame dominates this entertaining action comedy.

As a rogue CIA agent Robbie Weirdich, Johnson is like Jason Bourne on comedy steroids, combining a tremendous sense of goofy fun with the ability to fight his way out of a kitchen using only a banana.

The name of the character name is a pointer to the sophistication of the film’s humour.

Robbie is framed for the death of his partner and so lands unexpectedly on the doorstep of Calvin, his erstwhile best friend from high school.

Squeaky voiced comic Kevin Hart is refreshingly restrained and occasionally even funny as Calvin.

In order to accommodate the pneumatic presence of Johnson, Hart is squeezed into a rare straight man role. Although rarely allowed to ad lib in his usual shouty style, whenever Hart wriggles free the film stalls.

Once the king of the high school prom and predicted for greatness, Calvin is now a dull accountant and is having difficulties at home. Danielle Nicolet is sweetly concerned as his beautiful wife, Maggie.

Calvin reluctantly teams up with his erstwhile buddy to attempt to recover some military files while being pursued by the CIA.

Through all the chases, fights, escapes, interrogation, torture and some terrifying relationship therapy, it’s the strong comic rapport between the leads which keeps us engaged.

Amy Ryan is keeps a straight face as an icy CIA chief, Aaron Paul makes an impression in a small role and Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy cameo.

The story is predictable but Central Intelligence blasts along with a fun energy, decent stunts and some surprisingly violent action. Though not an over abundance of intelligence.

★★★☆☆

@ChrisHunneysett

 

 

 

 

 

The Boss

Director: Ben Falcone (2016)

Melissa McCarthy has carved out a career of variable quality with a distinctive brand of knockabout comedy.

Since a scene stealing supporting role in Bridesmaids (2011) she successfully teamed up with Sandra Bullock in The Heat (2014) before taking centre stage in comedy smash Spy (2015).

However for every hit there has been a misfire such as the poor Identity Thief (2013) and the terrible Tammy (2014). This is one of her lesser films.

Practically a one woman industry, she acts as producer, writer and star of this corporate romp.

Michelle Darnell is a shiny suited and power haired Sharon Osbourne lookalike with the blustering self belief of Donald Trump.

The bullying self made financial guru loses her fortune when she’s punished for insider trading.

Once released Michelle moves in with her former assistant and begins to plot her way back to the big time.

Kristen Bell and Ella Anderson offer a sweet contrast to their abrasive guest as hard working single mum Claire and young teen daughter Rachel.

While Peter Dinklage is an enjoyably demented samurai obsessed former colleague turned bitter business enemy.

McCarthy relies heavily on her screen presence to bulldozer over the lack of decent jokes in a weak script which substitutes slapstick violence and swearing for wit.

Hardcore fans of McCarthy may enjoy The Boss but it’s not a product that raises the value of her stock.

★★☆☆☆

@ChrisHunneysett

 

Spy

Director: Paul Feig (2015)

The world of espionage will never be the same after this enjoyable action caper smears poo and puke jokes over the glossy veneer of a James Bond parody.

As one-time 007 star George Lazenby once put it: ‘this never happened to the other fella‘.

Following the hugely successful Kingsman (2015), it’s the second Bond inspired movie of 2015. In October we’ll see Spectre, Daniel Craig’s last roll of the dice as the British spy.

It offers big budget foul-mouthed laughs though the blunt-edged comedy of leading lady Melissa McCarthy are more likely to dislocate your funny bone that tickle it.

It’s the third time after Bridesmaids (2011) and The Heat (2013) she’s teamed with writer/director Paul Feig but this time the result is less successful.

A nuclear bomb in a suitcase is being touted around the bad guys of Europe.

With key agents incapacitated the CIA are forced to send clumsy back-room computer operative Susan Cooper (McCarthy) undercover.

She is so unsuited to fieldwork she faints at the sight of blood and must fight not only heavily-armed bad guys – but her own inexperience and insecurity.

Decorated with the typical Bond furniture of casinos, helicopters, fast cars and gadgets, the plot moves briskly through the familiar locations of Paris, Rome and Budapest.

As Theodore Shapiro’s music reaches a satisfactory Bond-esque pitch, the action is technically well executed.

However it’s handled leniently by the editor; one explosion is seen from at least seven different camera angles.

If this is intended to be exaggeration for comic effect such as mastered by Paul Verhoeven in Robocop (1987) and John Landis in The Blues Brothers (1980), it’s insufficiently developed.

More likely it’s aping the current trend in editing for repeating the same shot from different angles to exploit the budget for maximum onscreen effect.

Either way it slows the pace and contributes to the generous running time. This lack of ruthlessness in the edit is a big problem and Spy keeps repeating it.

The unnecessary appearance of rapper 50 Cent is another example, as is the weary repetition of an excellent joke about the consequences of having an Operations room in a basement.

There’s a great knife in a kitchen with glamorous assassin Lia (Nargis Fakhri) where comedy and action combine instead of competing – the film would be much improved with more scenes like it.

Jude Law’s champagne swilling tuxedo’d super-spy Bradley Fine offers a glimpse of a James Bond we’ll never have.

The British star is happy to send himself up as the vainest man on the planet but labours under an American accent and a script offering him few decent lines.

Fortunately Jason Statham and Peter Serafinowicz abseil in with expertly calibrated comic performances and rescue the Americans from a mire of directorial appeasement.

Their deranged performances steal their every scene. Rick Ford (Statham) is a barking mad rogue agent while Aldo (Serafinowicz) is an undercover Italian operative with unsuppressed passions.

It’s fair enough the men are vain idiots and the women do the actual work – but Spy seems overly-pleased with itself for this reversal and the result is more indulgence.

Miranda Hart riffs on her TV persona as Cooper’s dowdy sex-starved colleague Nancy B. Artingstall. She’s a not-so best friend who’s happy to embarrass Cooper in front of glamorous agent Karen Walker (Morena Baccarin in not much more than a cameo).

As criminal mastermind Rayna Boynaov, Aussie actress Rose Byrne dresses up in a cut-glass accent and trashy outfits and commendably commits herself to ridicule in a broad performance.

McCarthy’s a fine and engaging actress who capably charts the journey from put upon underling to confident ass-kicker. But her ad libbing is rarely as funny as the film thinks it is.

A running joke sees McCarthy in a variety of terrible outfits and looking at one point not unlike Dawn French in the Vicar Of Dibley. One or two inspired lines aside, she’s also about as funny.

★★★☆☆