Ghostbusters (2016)

Skippable with no continuity cost whatever. It is a complete reboot in its own continuity, nothing before or after refers to it, and the line that continued went in a different direction entirely. If you are working through the series, this sits outside it.

It is also the one film here whose reception cannot be discussed honestly without the context. An organised campaign against it ran for the better part of a year before release, aimed at the casting, and it was ugly enough that the trailer became one of the most disliked videos on the internet before anybody had seen a frame. Reviews, box office and the eventual decision to abandon the direction all happened inside that, which makes the film very hard to assess at its actual level.

At its actual level it is a mixed comedy with a weak script. Paul Feig's method is to shoot long and let performers find the joke, which works in a film about people talking and works badly in a film that also has to deliver an effects-led third act, so the first hour is loose and funny and the last half hour is a generic sky-beam finale with a villain nobody can remember. Kate McKinnon is operating on a different plane from the material and is the one unambiguous success.

Watch it if you want to judge it for yourself, which is a defensible reason given how little of the original conversation was about the film. Do not watch it expecting it to connect to anything.