Instead, the same weakness that has plagued a goodly portion of major releases this year that rely on past successes for their reason to exist rears up again: the lack of the new and fresh. And what is different isn’t different enough or somehow seems a diminishment. Wiig’s Erin, a Columbia University physics professor, is pulled back into her suppressed paranormal research past when she reunites with McCarthy’s Abby, an estranged childhood chum and fellow ghost chaser, after long-dead apparitions begin to wreak havoc on Manhattan. Joining them are McCarthy’s human Looney Tune gadget-whiz partner Holtzmann (McKinnon, who is a gas, gas, gas and then some) and history-buff subway worker Patty (Jones, who does a fine job of keeping the bustin’ real and physical).

Meanwhile, instead of restless Babylonian gods, there is a human nut-job villain (Neil Casey)—who seems to have studied bad-guy Syndrome from Pixar’s “The Incredibles”—summoning these filmy monsters in order to bring about an apocalypse with all the CGI overkill that 21st-century technology can deliver. But as anyone who subjected themselves to “Independence Day: Resurgence” knows, mass destruction of major cities isn’t as much fun as it used to be. 

What really galled me was the attitude that these supposedly brilliant and successful women are forced to assume. While nerdy wise guys Murray, Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd never questioned their belief in afterlife inhabitants or wavered in their confidence to control them despite a raft of skeptics, she-geeks Wiig and McCarthy are cowed into playing misfits who were shunned by others because of their spooky interests when they were young girls, and are now emotionally damaged goods trying to prove themselves right. All I know is I don’t want my funny gals muted. I want them full blast.

Enough with the so-so. Let’s celebrate McKinnon’s ability to sneak into the corners of scenes and force us to watch her. All it takes for her to rivet us is a flirtatious wink of her eye, the slow curl of her lascivious lips or the enthusiastic munching of a container of Pringles—or “salty parabolas,” as she calls the chips—that seems to materialize out of nowhere. Imagine Harpo Marx combined with a yellow-lens-goggles-wearing Minion who somehow confuses the ‘80s R&B group DeBarge with far-out Devo and see if you aren’t already giggling to yourself.

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