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Ghostbusters | 2016 | PG-13 | - 2.4.3

In this re-launch of the 1984 classic, a paranormal investigator (Melissa McCarthy) and a physicist (Kristen Wiig) write a book proving that ghosts are real, are belittled and lose their jobs. Glowing apparitions begin appearing in NYC and the scientists join with an engineer and a subway clerk to stop the hauntings. Also with Neil Casey, Charles Dance, Michael Kenneth Williams and Chris Hemsworth. Directed by Paul Feig. [1:57]

SEX/NUDITY 2 - A Slimer and a female Slimer (green wrinkled blobs) kiss briefly in the front seat of a hearse as the male drives.
 A woman bends over a desk (while alone) and wiggles her behind to exercise, until an elderly man enters and startles her. A man dances in two scenes, doing pelvic thrusts.
 A woman tells a man that the "e" in her name means, "Everything you want"; she smiles and sometimes giggles at him throughout the film. Three women say that a man is dumb, but pretty to look at.
 A woman wears jeans and a cutoff top baring a few inches of waistline. We see an outline drawing of a ghost torso with large breasts (no nipples). A man holds up two photos of himself, shirtless. A room is full of faceless female mannequins with breasts.

VIOLENCE/GORE 4 - A woman releases a ghost from a box and the ghost pushes a man out a second story window as it flies away; we see the man's legs fall out of the frame and later hear that he hit the ground (presumably dead), but we do not see him.
 An entity comes out of a man and becomes a Casper ghost with bad teeth; it bursts through a high rise building and all the windows blow out, it stomps through a city smashing buildings and cars that all fly into a whirling vortex and the man falls off a ledge and lands on four women, all unhurt; the ghost has a smoldering, glowing face and shoulder where something unseen hit it and four women shoot it in the groin area with blaster beams until it falls into the vortex taking a woman with it.
 A woman in bathroom sees a sink drain flow green as a green streak shoots up and into her body; she smiles wickedly and exits into a laboratory where she smashes equipment and knocks down a colleague, then picks the other woman up by the throat and the victim's feet dangle; she tosses the woman out a second story window, but a third woman catches the victim by the wrists and pulls her back in before shouting and slapping the first woman in the face hard, telling an entity to come out and a green streak shoots out of the woman and into a man outside who motorcycles away and stops at a hotel where he knocks out two police officers, enters the basement and powers up a machine that creates a large vortex over the building through which thousands of streaking entities fly (the entities look like slime balls, short green glowing squids, and beams of light).
 A woman hooks a metal cable to her belt and jumps into an inter-dimensional vortex where she moves some distance and catches another woman while two other women pull the women in the vortex out by the cable (the last two women now have white hair) and the vortex closes behind them.
 A man turns on a glowing machine to emit energy rays, puts himself into large electrical coils, electrocutes himself and releases the beings from inside the mirrors, saying they are tortured souls; the beings change to energy beams that streak into the air and form a tornado cloud above a building and the city fills with streaks of energy and people run, screaming.
 A door handle is red hot and burns a man's hand; something unseen throws a chair at him and an invisible force throws him into a wall, dislodging plaster and molding as he runs into the basement and large floor cracks glow green, raising green slime that splashes on him and the staircase collapses under him and slime covers him as a green misty entity appears and the man screams (the scene ends and we see the man the next day unharmed). A woman inside a mansion steps on a spot of green slime and a door opens itself, releasing blue glowing light from the basement; a female ghost wearing a long dress and surrounded by neon green mists floats out the door and a woman approaches it, its head turns to a skull in close-up, and it vomits a lot of green slime onto the woman, making her wet and sticky, then it flies away. A basement door handle shakes, a roar and scream come from behind the door and a man shouts in fear.
 A dragon ghost that looks like medieval woodcuts of the devil glows and flies over an audience and singers at a concert as the lead singer announces that they have called up Satan; a woman jumps into the audience and falls on her back where the creature picks her up and stands on her shoulders; three other women shoot it with blasters and capture it in a metal box.
 A mannequin turns its head, chases a woman and kicks in a door while four women shoot it with blasters and reduce it to ashes until a glowing dragon rises from them and flies away. A woman fires a proton blaster at a ghost that appears, the ghost roars, and it knocks down and vomits slime over all the women before disappearing and a train runs over the blaster pack.
 Several scenes feature women firing proton blasters that emit strong beams at entities that shoot through the air as streaks or take semi-human form; the women use a hearse as a ghost hunting vehicle, with nuclear devices attached to the roof of the hearse.
 A hotel bellboy/maintenance technician has a large glowing electrical machine and several mirrors behind which faces and hands from another realm press and hit against the glowing glass as he mumbles that he was bullied and will now be the bully.
 Electrical equipment in an old subway tunnel sparks and glows, drawing out a ghost and it floats in the air while glowing with transparent clothing and a skeleton underneath; it roars in close-up, and a woman shouts in fear. Four women enter subway tunnels, see sparking electrical equipment and sputtering overhead lights, and feel dripping debris from the ceiling; one woman says it smells like urine all through the tunnels.
 A nighttime parade of large balloons is taken over by evil entities and glows green; led by a roaring Uncle Sam, they approach three women who shoot them with blasters and disintegrate them until a giant marshmallow man balloon falls on the women, smashing them into the ground and another woman pops the balloon with a short knife; it explodes and burns, leaving the women unharmed. Women with proton blasters fight an evil balloon and a man who throws energy beams; a demonized Pilgrim balloon explodes when a grenade hits it and other balloons crash and burn, while two cars and a pickup truck crumple in smoke and a little fire. A dragon ghost drops two women onto car roofs, unhurt. A woman with two hand blasters licks the barrel of one of them and shoots a dozen blob-like entities until they disintegrate. Four women shoot proton blasters at a hearse full of glowing humanoid entities and it falls into a vortex.
 A high power blaster propels its user into alley ways and finally slams her to the ground (she is uninjured); another woman throws a nuclear grenade, which ignites half the alley with flashes and a loud boom while a third woman turns on a power shredder that sucks in debris and reduces it to confetti, and a fourth woman turns on another device that shoot wide balls of glowing energy and knocks a hole in a wall. A woman dances with two lit blow torches, catches something on a counter aflame, and extinguishes the small fire with a large extinguisher.
 A food cart on a street explodes and an entity appears, gobbling food. An entity steals a hearse and picks up a couple dozen other entities for a joy ride. Hundreds of armed soldiers and police officers are frozen in place in a dance move by an entity that took over a man's body; he later makes them dance disco and hip hop, and some soldiers pretend to fire weapons as a dance move.
 A man in a mansion tells frightened looking men and women that in 1894 the owner's daughter killed all of the staff people, who are sometimes seen as ghosts; he says, "God makes no mistakes, but he may have been drinking when he made the daughter." A man tells three women that they are going to die if they enter an old mansion. A woman says a neighbor of a girl died and her ghost appeared in the girl's bedroom every night for a year; her parents forced her to go to therapy and the kids at school belittled her. A man on a gurney at a heavy metal concert mumbles, "Diablo," as a man screams loudly in a woman's voice. A woman finds a book with pages covered with pictures that a man drew of himself as an angry giant terrorizing the world.
 A mayor says that people were turned inside out, with their skin on the inside and their organs on the outside, but we do not see any of them; he orders four women to stop hunting ghosts and agents arrest the women twice, but immediately release them. Two women are evicted from their research lab by a man who belittles them and he chases them with a ball bat briefly as they leave the building. Two men scuffle outside a building briefly in a long shot. A woman argues with a man in a restaurant and two special agents carry her away; she grabs a table and pulls the tablecloth and several lunches off as the scene ends. Two women argue loudly in several scenes. A woman is fired from her university job. A woman slams a guitar to the floor several times, until it is splintered.
 Two woman play a tape recording of a loud flatulent noise to another woman, and one of the first women says the sound came from a woman's crotch; the third woman tells them they are disgusting. A man tells three women that another man present was so scared by a ghost that he soiled himself. In two scenes, a man spits coffee out onto a floor.

LANGUAGE 3 - 3 obscene hand gestures, 2 scatological terms, 8 anatomical terms, 12 mild obscenities, name-calling (crazy, nuts, insane, wackos, freak show, freaks, stupid, dumb, idiots, nonsense, cocky, disgusting, weirdo, weird), exclamations (my gosh, golly, shoot, suck it, shut-up), 22 religious exclamations (Holy [scatological term deleted], Oh My God, My God, God, Jesus, Good God, The Devil Is A Liar).

SUBSTANCE USE - A woman says jokingly, "Am I on crack?" at a heavy metal concert, Ozzy Osbourne says, "I'm having a flashback," and after a large scale ghost attack the mayor reports that there were no ghosts but terrorists drugged the water supply. Men and women in a cafe drink tall glasses of beer and one table has a pitcher of beer on it, and men and women in a restaurant are seen at tables with glasses of wine or champagne (no one drinks).

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Ghosts, demons, demonic possession, belief, madness, intelligence, bullying, self-esteem, danger, death, fighting, nuclear devices, destruction, determination, courage, friendship, respect, trust, cooperation.

MESSAGE - Determined women can solve major problems in society, even when no one else supports their work.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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