A little over a year ago, Sony announced that they would be helming an all female Ghostbusters reboot, and the internet promptly went wild. Jaded fanboys voiced their complaints over women donning the iconic crossed out ghost symbols on their boiler suits and myriad opinion pieces were published with words like “misogyny” and “equality” playing key parts in attention grabbing headlines, while the rest of the world sat back and waited for the film to actually come out before they allowed themselves to share their thoughts. Now, the time has come, the movie is finally being released, and the controversy surrounding this sensitive project is at an all time high. But the question remains: is the film any good? And if it isn’t, does pointing out such a fact automatically make a person sexist?

If there’s one thing that can be said about the world of filmmaking, it’s that attitudes and perceptions about the movies in question cannot and should never be defined in such stark black and white concepts. A film is not decidedly a success or a failure based on preconceived notions put into place by those who developed strong opinions on the feature before it even hit the big screen. Considering this fact, it becomes absolutely essential to judge the new Ghostbusters movie on its merits, not on the ideas of those who made up their minds about the film months before it was even released in theaters. With this in mind, it becomes blatantly clear that while Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters is undoubtedly a film that carries a great amount of social and cultural relevance, the truth is that it just isn’t a very well made picture.

In the film, which acts as a brand new origin story, four women are brought together by the call of the paranormal. Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) is up for tenure at Columbia University when her past suddenly threatens to derail her future. A book she wrote on ghostly phenomena years ago has come back to haunt her in the worst way possible when her co-author, Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy) puts the book up for sale online without Erin’s permission. Terrified her snooty staff at Columbia will see, Erin visits her old pal at the lab and inevitably gets sucked in to investigating some suspicious activity with Abby and her wacky new scientist friend Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon). Once the girls witness their very own full fledged apparition in person, it’s only a matter of time before they round out the crew with their final addition, the fearless and street savvy Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones). Now, as New York becomes a hotbed for spooky spirits and sinister motives, these four women will rise to the challenge of saving their beloved city from the wrath of the undead, and taking on the title of the new and improved 2016 Ghostbusters.

By this point it’s no surprise that writer/director Paul Feig, the man who brought us such gems as Bridesmaids, The Heat, and Spy would be adequate at providing a few laughs, and Ghostbusters is no exception. If nothing else, the man has done a terrific job of rounding up not just four of the funniest women in Hollywood, but four of the best comedic actors working in the industry at this very moment, and placing them all in the same project. The result is a movie that is charming, enjoyable, and a steadfast case of scene stealer Kate McKinnon’s talent, but it is also a prime example of the main issue that plagues many of Feig’s films, which is that as entertaining as they are, they wind up becoming forgettable once the audience exits the theater.

With a script that feels just as lazy and inept as the girls’ eye candy male secretary, in addition to overtly awful CGI ghosts and in-your-face wink wink nudge nudge actor cameos from the original film, the cold hard fact is that Ghostbusters is overall a pretty bad movie. Most of the blame for the random, sporadic storytelling can be placed on the script supervisor’s shoulders, but as it tends to be a pattern for Feig to present films that are meant to feel significant but wind up feeling incomplete, it’s only fair that he takes credit for the shortcomings of his latest endeavor as well.

Having said that, it is still very necessary to point out that it is, in fact, very inspirational to see women wearing proton packs. It’s honestly just nice to know that there will be an entire generation of girls growing up with that powerful image seared into their tiny little impressionable minds. It would just be more satisfying if they had a more solid movie to go along with the courageous notion of lady ghostbusters.

In the end, the 2016 Ghostbusters remake turns out to be a film that is much more important than it is outright successful. On a technical level, it may not be much more than a forgettable popcorn summertime flick, but generally speaking, it’s still a step in the right direction, and it can still serve as a guiding light for young girls (and boys) looking for a female cinematic hero to idolize. Disliking this movie doesn’t make a person a sexist any more than praising it makes he or she a hero, despite what many fans and critics claim. Honestly, pretending to like a movie just because it has an all female cast makes a person just as guilty of sexism as if he or she put it down for the exact same reason. Equality between male and female entities onscreen will only truly exist when audiences can look at a movie and judge it objectively based on its merits, not on whether the ghosts are being trapped by people with certain characteristic chromosomes. Rebooting a cherished mostly male franchise with all women is an innovative idea, but hopefully the next attempt, no matter what the series happens to be, will present a story that’s just as strong as the ladies in the leading roles.