Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Director Jason Reitman does his father and fans proud with a funny, sweet, and spooky family movie that proudly takes on the legacy of Ghostbusters, while also introducing something exciting and new.

Although director Jason Reitman (son of Ivan, who made the first two) has done a solid job of satisfying multiple needs while turning out a passably amusing and affecting story, the limitations of the Ghostbusters formula are apparent. Ultimately, however, nostalgia remains the main selling point and viewers attending for that reason won’t be disappointed.

At its best Ghostbusters: Afterlife simply delivers a good time, combining the upgraded special effects with comedy and youthful angst, while taking a little too long to get to the good stuff.

It has its moments, most of them owing to a quite-phenomenal Mckenna Grace,as a 12-year-old techno wiz, and Paul Rudd, as an easygoing science teacher, but they don’t make up for a general flat-footedness and tendency to wobble.

The effects have a pleasingly retro patina, but the action itself is drab, the jokes scarce, while the town itself is both entirely characterless and oddly deserted, giving the impression that nothing’s really at stake. It’s just what we were warned about all those years ago: something weird that don’t look good.

It might sell tickets, but only because people recognise the name. Any interest in artistry is all but dead and gone in the age of the IP blockbuster.

Rarely has a sequel been this listless, this creatively bankrupt, or this unaware of the charm and appeal of its predecessors. Rarely has a film been this craven in appeasing an imaginary audience by mimicking what came before it and refusing to challenge itself in terms of dreaming up a new world, crafting new characters, or fashioning new stakes.

The film ignores the awful "Ghostbusters" from 2016 and makes a very direct reference to the very first film. And that's a good thing. The plot creates a bridge from our old friends to a new generation, and much remains in the family. The creators around director Jason Reitman, the son of Ivan Reitman, are very respectful of everything that has been established so far in the Ghostbusters canon. For me, this is proof that sequels nowadays don't always have to come off as woke and thus upset the fans. Ghostbusters: Afterlife is fun, brings back memories and continues the story, even with a sad side. Of the actors, Mckenna Grace as Phoebe cuts a particularly good figure. In short, successful entertainment all around.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife has again like Frozen Empire it's good and bad bits as it relives a bit and passes on to the new generation but you are in for the most bumpy ride you will ever see!.

Business dried up quickly for the original Ghostbusters, after their fateful 1984 duel with Gozer the Gozerian halted all the paranormal phenomena that made their jobs necessary. Too good for their own good, in other words, and after the money ran out, the team splintered to pursue their own next chapters. All except Egon, that is, who remained convinced of a looming sinister spook until the day he died. Now, in the midst of sorting through his estate, the brainy buster's grown daughter and grandkids are digging through his old toys, unraveling that mystery and getting in way over their heads. Afterlife is a film that tries extra-hard to pluck the strings of nostalgia and works overtime to surround us with the fresh, quirky character that made the first Ghostbusters so unforgettable... sometimes to its own detriment. Although the three remaining original heroes only stop by for a word or two, the shadows of their past selves loom tall and large, regularly outshining the mousier, more introverted comedic stylings of the new players. It's wonderful to hear so many familiar cues in the musical score (great call there), to inspect old props and clips and memories from new angles, to see how the exploits of this fab four are regarded by the public forty years later, but at some point we need to move on, to fill the void with something fresh, and I don't think this gets us there. The kids do well with the material, but they're not really distinct or vibrant enough to carry the load by themselves. Paul Rudd makes for a fine supporting player, lands a number of the film's best laughs, but he's inessential, disappearing for long stretches of time. The scale of the story is very small, too, despite its boasts **** peril, and the action is kept equally low-key. Still, it's not bad. Afterlife has loads of bright ideas and its heart's in the right place. The humor works, though it's in a different vein than the forebearer it so clearly idolizes, and the adept mix of CG and practical effects perform very well. As an homage, it serves the purpose. But as the opening salvo of a new saga, well, it's a little lean.

Afterlife is the kind of movie that leans heavily into the nostalgia factor and does little to really open the door to the next stage of adventures. I think fans view it more positively than they would have if the 2016 film never existed because when you have such a negative film that preceded it, You can only go up from there. And while Afterlife is by no means a bad movie, especially in comparison to the 2016 film or even GB2, It certainly isn't a memorable one. The characters are underdeveloped to a fault. The mother is given no backstory at all, There is a character called Podcast because he has a podcast, and Trevor is your typical male teenage character. The story is painfully slow at times and the CGI looks dated even for a film from 2021, specifically, I'd like to point out the god-awful Walmart scene so heavily featured in the trailers. The only two redeemable things about this movie are Paul Rudd and Mckenna Grace. Rudd perfectly captures the few attempts at humor in the film, which is more often missed than hit, but he is frustratingly absent in the second half. Grace is the true star of the film and really helped make it tolerable as this was very much her journey. All in all, Fans are gonna enjoy it for the nostalgia factor but I feel over time it would be received as highly. It's tolerable but forgettable. There isn't a single stand-out moment in this film and it runs for at least a good 20 minutes too long IMO.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]