The new "Ghostbusters" film, an all-female reboot of the 1984 classic, officially hits theaters Friday.
Starring Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon, the Paul Feig-directed comedy has garnered mixed reviews so far, with some critics panning it as "a big goopy splat of ectoplasm" and others praising it as "ooz[ing fun] from almost every frame."
We at DNAinfo New York have no interest in critiquing the movie as entertainment; we attended a Thursday screening to judge its merits as a creative work representing our fair Gotham.
As you've probably heard, most of the movie was shot in Boston as a means of reducing costs. (The original flick was filmed in New York City, Los Angeles and Burbank, California.)
So just how well did it capture the spirit of New York, compared to its predecessor? We guide you through its failures and successes below. Minor spoilers ahead:
1. BOO: Rather than open with a scene ostensibly set in the basement of the New York Public Library's main branch, as the original "Ghostbusters" does, the remake begins in the fictional Aldridge Mansion, a museum on the Upper West Side haunted by the Aldridge family's murderous daughter, Gertrude. The gothic building depicted in the film is actually the Boston University Castle.
A shot of the NYPL's exterior does make the cut for the film's title sequence.
2. WOO: When we meet Dr. Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig), she is — like Dr. Peter Venkman in v. 1 — a professor at Columbia University. The "Ghostbusters" crew did actually film outside the school campus in September.
3. BOO: Anyone with a subway map can tell you that the film's token station, where MTA employee Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones) works the booth and first encounters the supernatural, is a piece of fiction. Not only is there no such station as "Seward Street," but the 6 train definitely doesn't go to Queens as it does in the film.
4. WOO: When the reboot's ghost-busting ladies start looking for their new headquarters, they visit TriBeCa's famed Ladder 8 firehouse, where the original Ghostbusters set up shop back in 1984. In the 30 interceding years, a lot has changed in the neighborhood. What Egon Spengler once compared to a "demilitarized zone" has both in real life and the reboot become the gentrified home of celebrities such as Robert DeNiro and Beyoncé.
When a realtor tells Gilbert the space costs $21,000 a month, she (Wiig) spits out in misdirected fury, "Burn in hell!"
"All I was told is that you needed a place to explore the unknown," the realtor says.
"We need to explore something cheaper," Gilbert replies, echoing every renter in this city.
5. BOO: Gilbert and her squad end up renting the second floor of a Chinese restaurant, which makes perfect sense in New York — except there is no Zhu's Authentic Hong Kong Food in this city's Chinatown. The exterior shot of the eatery was taken in Boston.
6. WOO: The graffiti artist who unwittingly tags the wall of the Seward Street subway station with the Ghostbusters' new logo is pretty savvy when it comes to the New York real estate market.
"This is not my studio," he says of the station. "That's in SoHo. This is more my gallery."
7. BOO: During the scene in which Gilbert and Dr. Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy) explain the origins of their childhood friendship, all four paranormal investigators are pictured sitting around a table eating pizza.
The travesty is that this pizza is delivery from Papa John's. In a city that offers pies from Roberta's, Di Fara's, Grimaldi's, dear Emily, why would you ever order one that tastes mostly like dough? We smell a whiff of product placement.
8. WOO: News anchors such as New York's favorite Canadian, NY1 host Pat Kiernan, lend the remake authenticity with their on-air cameos. The new "Ghostbusters" may never have caught on among the average New Yorker without his endorsement.
9. WOO: When the ghost apocalypse clinches the Big Apple in the remake, rodent specters scurry out of the subway and a phantom flasher exposes himself to living passers-by. This strikes us as all too prescient.
10. WOO: As in the original film, the Ghostbusters discover a green ghoul by the name of Slimer munching away at the contents of a hot dog cart — because only a gluttonous ghost and tourists would consider consuming them.
11. BOO: City landmarks that appear in the original film directed by Ivan Reitman — such as the fountain in Lincoln Center, the front steps of City Hall, Rockefeller Center, the Manhattan Borough President's Office, and Tavern on the Green — get no time in the limelight in the reboot. Times Square may be the setting of a climactic ghostly rumble, but it isn't actually Times Square: the crew filmed the scene in an old Navy hanger outside Boston.
12. WOO: When asked where her uncle's hearse has gone, Tolan says of the car she and her fellow paranormal warriors had transformed into the Ecto 1 and launched into another dimension, "It's on the other side."
"Jersey?" asks her uncle, played by Ernie Hudson, the actor cast as Winston Zeddemore in the original film.
New Yorkers can agree that life in New Jersey is indeed another reality entirely.
