Copied and pasted

I had the same reaction to the new, female-led reboot of Ghostbusters as I did to last year’s Star Wars reboot (er, sorry, sequel). Of course it’s entertaining and of course audiences will enjoy it because it is, in essence, the same movie as the original. Except with women in the lead instead of men.

If you can overlook a lot of scatological humor and crude language and a little bit of sexual innuendo (mostly aimed at Chris Hemsworth as the secretary/himbo of the ensemble), then you’ll probably find some laughs in the PG-13-rated Ghostbusters. They’ll just be of the mild, fond-memory variety as opposed to the surprised-sidesplitting kind.

With the exceptions of scenes in which she drools over Hemsworth, Kristen Wiig as the new straight woman rarely pulls off a punchline. Ditto for her counterpart Melissa McCarthy. Other than mixing it up a little with a Chinese food delivery man, she never manages a single zinger. This leaves the bulk of the comedy weight to the supporting characters.

Though given little to do, Leslie Jones, who reprises Ernie Hudson’s role of the nonscientist African-American of the group, brings the most likability, and the movie would have been far better if it had taken a risk and focused more on her. Kate McKinnon as crackpot engineer Holtzmann is the funniest, most original thing about the film, but her comedy works in primarily the same way it does on Saturday Night Live—as mugging sight gags. She never feels like a whole character, the way Bill Murray’s Venkman or Harold Ramis’ Egon did.

But the biggest problem is that in paying such fanatical homage to the original, 2016’s Ghostbusters fails to capture its loose, free spirit.

Looking back, the 1984 version was rough around the edges production-wise, with plot holes you could drive a hearse through, but it was undeniably unexpected. The spectral attack that ended with Murray issuing the iconic line, “He slimed me”? Zuul’s portal to the other world hidden in a refrigerator? Most of all, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man? Who saw any of that coming? That was where the delight came from. Here, we’re simply waiting for each familiar bar to play with a slightly different harmony.

A more interesting question is why, with the exception of the totally tubular Guardians of the Galaxy, nostalgia for the Reagan era seems to be sparking mostly remakes rather than original stories reflecting back on those years. Back to the Future and Grease displayed a certain longing for the 1950s, but they weren’t just updated copies of Where the Boys Are or Gidget. Similarly, Wiig and the gang aren’t updating some forgotten gem today’s audiences are unfamiliar with, like You’ve Got Mail or 3:10 to Yuma, or letting loose with some fresh interpretation like Star Trek.

The particulars, like gender, may differ slightly, but in the generalities, Ghostbusters is simply an all-purpose copy of its well-remembered predecessor. And lest you’ve forgotten that cast, the new film shoehorns every major character (with the exception of Ramis who died in 2014) into the plot, sometimes in painfully corny ways.

So feel free to take a walk down memory lane with the Ghostbusting girls, confident that they haven’t committed any major sacrilege against your fondest cinematic memories. Just know they haven’t done anything to add to them either.