Even the ghosts are impressed

FROM LEFT: Leslie Jones, Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon

Many years after the “mucho macho” “Ghostbusters” comedy film franchise became a big hit, now comes the latest installment in the series, with an all-female stellar cast of characters in charge of the ghost-busting action.

How do they and their “change-making” starrer measure up?

All told, they and their director, Paul Feig, have come up with a slam-bang show that keeps viewers goonily grinning with its savvily nonstop action. Even the ghosts and spooks in the movie are properly impressed!

In this latest “femme-factored” chapter of the “Ghostbusters” film yarn, the ladies aren’t ditzy witch- and wizard-hunters.

Most of them are scientists who know what they’re dealing with—and, after some painful trials, errors and terrors, they learn how to tame, subdue and defeat all of the seeming gazillions of ghosts who want to bring New York City down to its knobby, knocking knees!

At first, nobody believes they can do it. But as they come up with new inventions that sock it to the mean-spirited nasties they’re fighting, the populace ends up lionizing them.

Still, it takes much more muscle, hustle and tussle with myriad miasmatic monsters before the film’s four resident heroines can claim ultimate victory against their disembodied adversaries.

In the process, director Feig and his team of creatives make sure that viewers’ attention doesn’t wander, by coming up with a number of twists and turns in the movie’s plot and character development.

They include instances in which the evil spirits enter seemingly innocuous or even friendly people’s bodies, catching the Ghostbusters off guard—especially when some of them turn out to be “it!”

On the minus side, we get the feeling that the movie is too talky, and that some of the jokes aren’t all that funny.

In addition, the big plot for “world domination” that impels the army of ghosts to do its worst isn’t all that clear or engaging.

It’s a good thing that the film’s stars have taken great pains to come up with characters that are delightfully vital and varied, so our involvement in them as persons is sustained and enriched.

The best performance, in our view, is turned in by Melissa McCarthy, whose spunky screen persona energizes the action with uncommon sass and brio.

It also helps that she’s given an opportunity to play “another” character, when her body is “borrowed” for a spell by a ghastly ghost.

The best discovery in the stellar cast is Leslie Jones, who’s cast as a highly stressed subway transit employee who finally finds her “true calling” in the ghost-busting trade.

A final note: The movie’s big denouement and all-out “war” isn’t as exciting as it should be because too much of it is pulled off by way of shimmering, shuddering and shattering “special effects.

They may be big on visual oomph and splendor, but look artificially added-on, and thus lacking in genuine, involving dynamism.

Still, the all-female “Ghostbusters” spookfest succeeds in “proving” that, when it comes to feisty and fantasticating screen comedy, the gals can match the guys—as good as it gets!