Finally, the film everyone (and I use everyone loosely here) has been dying to see since it has been announced. After the ups and downs with the announcement, marketing, and surprising reviews I have seen the rebooted, rejuvenated, 2016 'Ghostbusters' and not to my surprise...it’s horrible. I'm not one for being harsh on films but 'Ghostbusters' is not a good feature film in the slightest. This goes with saying that I'm not a big fan of the franchise to begin with. The first film is decent, not good, not bad, just decent and the second one is fairly forgettable. Thankfully I'm not one of those mindless, crybaby trolls on the Internet trashing a film that apparently ruins their childhood. I'm also on record for hoping and praying this film was everything but bad, I expected it to be bad due to the atrocious marketing but I had a sliver of hope left. We had a solid comedic director in Paul Feig who delivered a good time with 'Spy', Melissa McArthy is the hottest comedic actress in the business, Kristen Wiig is great in practically everything, and Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon are up and coming comedic stars. This film had a lot of potential to be a classic modern day comedy that strives off of the success of its founding father. Unfortunately the film tries to do everything right but does practically everything wrong. 'Ghostbusters' is boring, unfunny, lifeless, and downright disappointing. For the first time in my life I actually considered walking out of a film, saying that almost makes me tear up because I want to participate in all aspects of the cinematic landscape but 'Ghostbusters' hurt. The film is first and foremost a comedy but when you realize immediately that the comedy isn't striking then you kind of get a good idea what you're in for. Wait, maybe the story can save it and be an exciting, engaging tale about ghosts taking over New York. Nope. Wait, maybe the characters can be exciting, compelling, and really fun to hang out with. Nope. The one thing that 'Ghostbusters' does right is that its visuals are pretty fantastic. The colors pop and give the film a sense of life and add some visual fun to the mix of an otherwise bad film. Okay, the discussion segment about how 'Ghostbusters' goes about empowering females in the wrong way begins right here: I've always been an advocate for making progress with minorities in the Hollywood landscape. I support the notion and support any chance the industry takes in progressing forward females, black men and women, Mexican men and women, Asian men and women, etc. The only time I have a problem with attempting to make progress is when the film goes about it in all the wrong ways much like 2016's 'Ghostbusters'. The project does a fine job of getting the females at the forefront but my problem lies within the film and how they go about empowering the females. 'Ghostbusters' attempts to empower its females by making all of the male characters moronic and unbelievably stupid, or a complete jerk for no reason whatsoever. Chris Hemsworth's character is so unbelievably dumb I didn't buy a single thing he did in the film. Maybe the film did this because it was to get back at all those years females have been portrayed horribly. That just isn't right nor is it the right way of going about progressing the norm in the landscape and gaining traction on getting everyone to want equality for all. In my eyes 'Ghostbusters' is the worst example of progressing females' roles in Hollywood. A film that is a perfect example of progressing Hollywood in the right direction is 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens'. The film includes a strong, likable white female lead in Rey, it also contains a strong, likable black male lead in Finn, and it also contains a strong, likable white male lead in Han Solo and Kylo Ren. 'The Force Awakens' is a prime example of progressing females and black males but by making them great characters and by not dumbing down or knocking down another gender and/or race. That, to me, is TRUE progress. That, to me, is the right way in going about getting Hollywood in the right direction. A film like 'Ghostbusters' who has a director behind it that implicitly wants female empowerment, and there is NOTHING wrong with that but he goes about in the worst way possible. How can you get equality for all but by putting females on the highest pedestal and males on the lowest? 'The Force Awakens' puts males, females, black, white and everything else on the same pedestal, the same playing field. THAT is progress. THAT is equality. This is obviously how I perceive this but I see this as the only right way to get everyone on the same page. How can we be headed in the right direction when big blockbusters like ‘Ghostbusters’ go out of its way to paint men as the bad guy? How can we be headed in the right direction when big blockbusters such as 'Transformers' goes out of its way to paint women as sex symbols? For me, 'Ghostbusters' took two steps forward and one step back. We've gotten nowhere in progressing females in Hollywood with this particular film. We've been expecting an empowering film with strong female leads since the film was announced but we didn't get that. They tried giving us strong, likable leads but at the cost of painting men as brain-dead morons. It devalues how important it is to make progress in Hollywood with stronger, likable female leads. I would love to hear your thoughts on that topic as I'm very passionate about it and believe 'Ghostbusters' hurt the cause more than it helped it. 'Ghostbusters' gets a 1.5/10