Originally Posted by
Shorty
I think that calling it cringe-worthy and unfunny is even a stretch. How much of the script have we seen, really? A minute and a half of talk time? Is that enough to judge how funny a movie is or is not? I think that if you were in a theater for a preview and saw Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd pull that scene where Melissa McCarthy catches Kate McKinnon behind the shelf and she goes, "Is it the hat? Is the hat too much?" that it would be hilarious and that fans would love it. If you really and truly don't think that's funny, that's your prerogative and of course you are entitled for it, but that was an objectively funny scene. And if someone chooses to not like it because it doesn't have their favorite dudes saying the lines, well, that is problematic.
I do firmly believe that this film would be embraced open-armed if there were funny men in the roles in place of the funny women who are currently cast. I say that because we've seen mediocre garbage like Horrible Bosses or Dinner for Schmucks that is received as being fairly funny, but if women were cast in place of those roles, I believe that they would receive much lower ratings. Instead they are tolerated and even celebrated as being funny because of the men who star in them, even though the scripts and jokes are not that good, whereas films that star funny women like this are shredded apart if they don't have 10/10 five-star jokes across the board.
The fact is that the actresses, the director, the entire crew took a gamble on this film and making these changes, and I think that it's being criticized much worse than it needs to be. It doesn't look atrocious or cringe-worthy to me. It doesn't look like the best movie of 2016, but does look fine.
I understand that a lot of this resistance is riding on childhood expectations being messed with, but within the realm of encouraging an open mind, if you like the actresses and think seeing a squad of funny ladies hunt down ghosts to save New York sounds like a good time, then I would encourage you to see it. If you compare it to the good time Murray and Akroyd had decades in the past, then you'll have a bad time of it.