As a forewarn, I thought the theatrical cut was mediocre at best, as a lot of the jokes fell flat and felt childish, the cast were all trying to be the main focus of comedy, instead of having different styles of it, pacing was forgettable, soundtrack had some good moments but also a lot of bad ones and misused songs. It wasn't the worst movie I'd ever seen, its no Age of Extinction, but not being the worst didn't make it good to me.
As to be expected, the plot in the extended cut is the same as the theatrical, and that plot is: extremely similar to the original Ghostbusters... and Ghostbusters 2 technically. Short hand of it, Ghosts are starting to run amuck because of a new villain, three scientists and a general worker in New York (HOLD IT, I know what you're about to say, let me finish this review first) who start up a business hunting ghosts and eventually find the source and put a stop to the villain's evil plan. Like with The Force Awakens and its similarities with A New Hope, the differences come with the characters. Only difference is that Force Awakens has more enjoyable characters. Sticking to the main characters. Abby Yates is just Melissa McCarthy. Not saying that's a bad thing, but from what I've seen of her, she has one specific style of comedy that she does often if not all the time. Consider it the live action version of something like a lot of Lisa Ortiz and Kevin Michael Richardson, when its hard to separate characters from each other due to the performance. Again, not saying its a bad thing, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, but it does feel samey. Erin Gilbert, the one who feels like she was at one point meant to play the straight one, the Egon "not intending to be funny, but the comedy comes more from the situation and reaction rather then trying to be funny". However it tends to fall flat as the writing never feels like its committed to it, like someone on the team said "Oh no, she doesn't have enough jokes, write jokes for her now!" She's also, to me at least, one of the worst characters in the movie as the personality she does have isn't enjoyable and comes off as awkward. Jillian Holtzmann, the only word I can think of for her is insane. Going back to the Egon comparison, as in the group, her skills are that of his, being an engineer. While Egon was grounded, Holtzman's nowhere near that and as a result gives more interesting devices for the team to use. She's actually the best character in the movie as a result of it. She's one of the few characters where the comedy is well done and in character, something that many of the other characters don't always get. Patty Tolan, I have to say first, the Ad campaign screwed over Leslie Jones, with the biggest one being "You three know all this science stuff, but I know New York", or something around those lines. To many like myself, when I read that I though "Oh for the love of Arceus, not another generic black stereotype" and got Skids and Mudflap flash backs... that last part is subjective. In the movie, its because she knows the history of New York, which makes more sense, but in the trailers, they were making her out to be a black stereotype. And I will admit some of her jokes like when she was trying to crowd surf and ending up with her back on the floor are like that. But at least it could have been far, far, far worse. What she is though in the movie is generic, as if they only had her character in the movie because they needed four Ghostbusters. She has got some good lines like in the final battle, but they are overshadowed by some like when she does the famous slap from the trailers. We aren't without the borderline insulting comedy though, as that title goes to Kevin Beckman, who to quote Wikipedia "the Ghostbusters' handsome but dimwitted secretary". That's putting it very mildly. He's an idiot, one of the dumbest characters I've ever seen in a movie. The only thing keeping it from going to the point of it being insulting is that you can see Chris Hemsworth having fun with it. There is some sincerity to the stupidity. They do go too far at times, but at least I don't wish Kevin dead like I do the Twins.
The best way to describe the movie in its whole, from the characters, to the fluro bright visuals which I don't actually mind as it gives the movie a surreal look to it, to the reuse of the Ghostbusters theme for most of the soundtrack, some poorly used like the original, some actually quite good like Walk the Moon, and others like the Fall out boy remix being utter garbage. The only way to describe it is "Its Paul Feig's spoof of a Ghostbusters movie, and not really a Ghostbusters movie". As a side story, or a spoof, it would have been taken a lot better, and most would see it for what it is, a mediocre movie. But because it was pushed as "The all new, one and only Ghostbusters" thanks to awful marketing, this may never get a sequel, continued on at all, and the animated movie they do will probably be another reboot. The only reason this movie got the amount of attention it did was bad marketing and bad PR. This movie could have been really good, and there are ways they could have met in the middle and made the news more manageable. But, they stuck too it, and the risk didn't pay off, making many people on the extreme sides of the debate look absolutely awful. This is what they dropped Ghostbusters 3 for people. Going up tomorrow morning is what could be salvaged from a podcast me and Marissa did. As stated in the opening, my recording was almost unuseable. Wednesday will be the Pokemon Adventures Gold and Silver arc though.
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