Paul Feig had a hell of a task before him bringing Ghostbusters back to the screen. From the moment Sony announced an all female team of Ghostbusters the haters have held court in public, pushing disgust and sexism at a wonderful cast of comedy actors. Those two years of negativity created a persistent low-level dirge that accompanied any positive mention of the film.

Well, finally, Feig’s Ghostbusters has seen the light of day, and I am happy to report that the Feig and ­­­­his co-writer Katie Dippold have made a film that is just fine, thank you very much. It’s full of problems: the narrative is a mess, the villain is unremarkable, but despite its flaws, Ghostbusters entertained me pretty much from start to finish. As far as late summer blockbusters go, you could do worse.

Melissa McCarthy and Kristin Wiig, both comedic stars capable of carrying a major comedy, are asked to anchor the film’s story and humor. But instead of letting these women run with the wackiness of their material, both Wiig and McCarthy are forced to bow to their predecessors. McCarthy’s best work, Bridesmaids and Spy come to mind, result from directors allowing her to unleash a wildness on-screen. Ghostbuster Abby Yates, a paranormal scientist working under the radar of a second-rate college, should provide ample opportunity for some of McCarthy’s inner mania. Instead, the bold talent she possesses feels bottled. Abby takes her work seriously, and that is fine, but it would have been better if McCarthy let her run a little more unhinged.

Wiig suffers from the opposite problem. She gives everything she has to Erin Gilbert, a Columbia faculty member on the verge of tenure when her old and estranged friend Abby ruins everything. The problem for Wiig is that the she’s dealt a crummy hand by Feig and Dippold. Wiig’s Gilbert waffles somewhere between excited about ghostbusting and desperate for the approval of the scientific community. All that gets her, though, is jokes about having slime up her cracks.

Luckily for Ghostbusters, Wiig and McCarthy are surrounded by a playfulness and oddity that cannot be dragged down easily. Take Chris Hemsworth, who plays the Ghostbusters secretary, Kevin. Kevin is perhaps the dumbest blonde to appear in a comedy since Julie Brown in Earth Girls Are Easy. The role is over the top stupid, and Hemsworth takes it on with much joyful idiocy. Sure, it’s a gender-flip without much depth. But who cares. It’s hilarious.

Also funny: Leslie Jones. Like Kristin Wiig, Jones gets dealt a fairly underwhelming hand with Patty the Transit Authority employee. But being off-center from the film’s central plot, Jones gets to have a lot more fun with her character. Here, Jones’ larger than life persona carries over from her SNL work. She knows an ensemble comedy is part competition, and when she has our attention, she makes the most of it.

The ensemble work of Ghostbusters goes a long way to mask the film’s larger problems. Most notably, Feig’s constant need to force the 1984 film into his remake. Perhaps the weight of expectations bore down on Feig. Or maybe Sony was nervous about ignoring the beloved classic. But time after time Ghostbusters looks backward at the expense of its own success, and each time I was pulled from the 2016 project and thought of the griping man-babies, complaining about their lost childhoods.

Ghostbusters does not live in the same universe as the original; but the constant cameos from the 1984 cast are overbearing and unnecessary, reminding us not only that this is a remake, but that it is a remake that doesn’t live up to its origins. That it doesn’t equal its source is no big deal, really. Special effects comedies are difficult films to pull off. There are only a handful of great ones, and 1984’s Ghostbusters is right at the top of the list. That Feig doesn’t make a classic can’t be held against him.

The special effects in 2016 Ghostbusters are quite good; some of the ghosts are scary, some are funny. The big bad at the end-a sort of giant Oogie Boogie Man from Nightmare Before Christmas- tends to hover somewhere in between. Feig struggles with the action sequences throughout the film, but he knows the comedy and focuses his attention on funny. That’s a fine approach for a comedy director.

Feig would have been wise to shake of the mantle of the first and fully claim the material for himself. Had he done so, Ghostbusters would have been much improved. And, as an added bonus, the world would have been spared the abysmally unfunny character Martin Heiss, played by Bill Murray, and the tonally adjacent delivery of Dan Akroyd’s “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts” (the film’s worst moment).

Which is to say, yes, there are plenty of problems in Ghostbusters. But all the failures that Feig manages are more than made up for by one Jillian Holtzmann, Kate McKinnon’s ghostbusting mad-scientist. McKinnon arrived four years ago on Saturday Night Live and in those years has revealed herself to be the best new SNL cast member in a decade. And now, McKinnon is the triumph of the new Ghostbusters team.

On SNL, McKinnon creates over-the-top characters in mere moments, through accent work and body-language (see: Olya Povlatsky, or this woman abducted by aliens). What works in sketch comedy, though, doesn’t always work in longer narratives with fleshed out characters. And to be sure, there are times when Holtzmann’s jerky movements and cartoon character dialogue are more irritating than inviting. But what McKinnon builds in Holtzmann’s science-obsessed wacko is a unique cinematic creation. I have never seen anything quite like her, and she is worthy to stand by the side of the original Ghostbusters.

There are other strange and funny bits in this movie. Andy Garcia as the mayor and Cecily Strong as his aide are hilarious (Garcia has perhaps the movie’s best joke, and he crushes it). Also on the edges is Zach Woods as a docent at a local haunted mansion, who gets to talk about Face Bidets and Anti-Irish Security Fences.

But its through Holtzmann I think we best understand what Ghostbusters achieves. She is a fringe character in Hollywood movies. She is weird and at times off-putting; she’s playful with her peers who, presumably, know she is a lesbian (though Sony didn’t want us to know); she is science-oriented, almost to the point of madness; and she is completely enchanting. And she highlights how a film this flawed can succeed by being embracing the weirder corners of mainstream Hollywood comedy.

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