BUSTIN' STILL MAKES ME FEEL GOOD

I was nine years old when I saw the original Ghostbusters. For a while back then, it was my world. Oh, how I loved that film – which seems odd in hindsight when you consider how adult much of its humour is. I think as a kid I didn't even think of it as a comedy. Ghostbusting was a serious business.

My wee girl is now pretty much the same age I was when the first film came out, and we find ourselves with a new, rebooted, female-led version. You may have noticed that this has caused some consternation online, with disproportionately angry men attacking the idea at every opportunity, declaring it sacrilege, an insult and the worst film ever (months before it came out, of course...).

Naturally, all of this embarrassing nonsense made me sympathetic to the notion of a Ghostbusters reboot. As a general rule, I'm pro anything that angers people who use terms like 'feminazi' and 'SJW', or who feel an unhealthy amount of ownership over corporate geek culture. Even so, I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun Ghostbusters 2016 is. It's more overtly comedic than the original, broader and lighter in tone, but has a lot of laughs and thrills, a few effective scares and a strong story. There are also not only pleasing nods to the so-called controversy surrounding the film, but a general metatextual thread relating to the Ghostbusters asserting their legitimacy. The well-balanced main cast are all really strong, especially Kate McKinnon as eccentric and delightful scientist Holtzmann. And the final climactic showdown is ace – dare I say, better than its 1984 counterpart?

Most importantly, the girl and her pal loved it. Stories and ideas go in cycles. Every generation has their Robin Hood, their Tarzan, their Wonder Woman, their Jedi... and now their Ghostbusters. For cultural concepts to be living things, rather than dusty museum pieces, we must be open to kids approaching them on their own terms. Much as I still love Ghostbusters 1984, it's a film very much of its time. It's now more than 30 years old. When I was a kid, films from the 1950s might as well have been from outer space for all they resonated with my contemporary experience. So it saddens me that some fellow ageing geeks are angered – actually angered, for god's sake – by the prospect of the next generation enjoying new iterations of stuff we loved, in ways that are relevant and meaningful to them. My daughter now has Ghostbusters of her own, and that's something to be celebrated.