I really don’t like being lumped in with any group of whiny man-babies who see an all-female reboot of a beloved film property from the 1980s as a direct assault on their sensibilities, masculinity and childhoods. The thing is, even if they do take something sacred to you from the past and redo it for a modern audience, nothing will ever take away the good thing that the original was (save for, let’s just say, The Cosby Show). Those whiny idiots complaining online about there being girls in their clubhouse? Those dudes do not speak for me.

Ghostbusters 2016 is an unnecessary remake of Ghostbusters 1984 (though ‘necessary’ seldom comes into play once the word ‘remake’ enters the lexicon). But once you get past creative short-sightedness run rampant in corporate Hollywood, what’s left is perfectly fine, often wildly enjoyable popcorn fare. Nothing gets ruined, the culture is not poisoned, everyone comes out of it unscathed. Everybody calm down.

There was close to zero reason to remake Ghostbusters – artistically, at least. The thing stands to scrutiny more than 30 years after it debuted; still funny, still impressively mounted, still a rousing piece of popcorn entertainment after all these years. Having said that, the four principles in this film (Melissa McCarthy, Kristin Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones) can be – at their best – brilliantly funny. So too director Paul Feig, who has a knack for consistently funny action comedies (Spy, The Heat). And yes, the last time McCarthy, Wiig and Feig worked together… let’s just say I did not care for that. One bit.

But I really did enjoy this one. You need a film like Ghostbusters to be funny and a bit scary, and this one is both of those. I seldom thought the gags fell flat, and while it is an effects-heavy piece, it does maintain a great deal of low-fi improv, character-driven humour. The stand out performances are Kristin Wiig, who gets the hero part and has a fair share of genuine ‘hero shots’ in this which made a hell of an impression. But the gold standard for this film is Kate McKinnon. Mostly known for her superb character work on Saturday Night Live lo these past years, she shines in this movie and gets the lion’s share of the bets lines. She’s great in this. Big things ahead.

As a property within a broader feminist cultural context, it’s probably vitally important. It’s telling that the main villain is a weird loner guy who wants revenge on a world that didn’t treat him right, and the big ‘monster’ the girls have to fight gets his comeuppance through some proton-pack laser shots to his vitals. As a single unit of large-scale corporate entertainment? Perfectly fine, and a great deal more so than say, the recent remakes of Fame, Footloose, Total Recall, Robocop, About Last Night, Annie, Arthur, The Gambler, The Karate Kid, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Oldboy… and there’s a new Ben-Hur this year too, for some reason.