{"id":6643,"date":"2024-10-23T13:40:18","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T17:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6643"},"modified":"2024-10-23T13:40:18","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T17:40:18","slug":"ghostbusters-afterlife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/23\/ghostbusters-afterlife\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghostbusters: Afterlife"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Ghostbusters: Afterlife <\/strong>(2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Comedy-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 124 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (supernatural action and some suggestive references)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jason Reitman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Gil Kenan and Jason Reitman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Rob Simonsen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Eric Steelberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 19, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Carrie Coon, Paul Rudd, Celeste O\u2019Connor, Logan Kim, Bokeem Woodbine, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts, Oliver Cooper, Tracy Letts.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $129.4M (US)\/$204.3M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0The sequel Ghostbusters: Afterlife<\/strong> isn\u2019t the original or anywhere close. I didn\u2019t expect it to be. The good news is that it\u2019s not as bad as it could have been. The bad news is it still doesn\u2019t measure up. Something\u2019s definitely missing. It\u2019s missing the comic energy that made the 1984 movie an instant classic. Headlined by Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and the late Harold Ramis, Ghostbusters was a comedy first and foremost. Ghostbusters: Afterlife<\/strong> isn\u2019t. It\u2019s different. It feels more like a condensed season of Stranger Things than a Ghostbusters sequel. I\u2019m not even sure I can call it a comedy. It\u2019s more of a drama with elements of comedy and horror.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The initial premise evokes memories of 80s-era Steven Spielberg. An imperfect family moves to a small rural town only to discover it\u2019s a hotbed of supernatural activity. The protagonist of Ghostbusters: Afterlife<\/strong> is 12YO Phoebe (Grace, Annabelle Comes Home), a socially awkward nerdy kid with an aptitude for science. She\u2019s forced to relocate to middle-of-nowhere Summerville, OK with her big brother Trevor (Wolfhard, Stranger Things) after their frazzled single mother Callie (Coon, The Leftovers) gets them evicted from their Chicago apartment. It seems her recently deceased grandfather owned property there, a dilapidated farm strewn with junked cars and sheets of rusted metal emblazoned with words from Revelations. It\u2019s hardly an ideal situation, but it\u2019s all they\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Trevor takes a job at a local fast food joint where he meets Lucky (O\u2019Connor, Freaky), a plucky waitress whose family has lived in Summerville for four generations, while Phoebe is enrolled in summer school in hopes that she will finally make some friends. She does, a local kid who calls himself Podcast (Kim) because of his podcast dealing with the supernatural. Their teacher is Gary Grooberson (Rudd, Ant-Man), a seismologist whose methods involve showing the kids VHS tapes of horror movies (e.g. Cujo, Child\u2019s Play).<\/p>\n

\u00a0What I\u2019m about to say doesn\u2019t qualify as a spoiler since it was already revealed in the trailers which have been running since 2019 thanks to COVID (yes, another delayed release). The dead grandfather is, in fact, Egon Spengler, the Ghostbuster played by Ramis. He\u2019s been estranged from daughter Callie all her life. She never met him and is bitter about it. Phoebe, on the other hand, is a chip off the old block. She even looks like Egon. It\u2019s she who first realizes something is up. There\u2019s a paranormal presence in the house and it leads her to a secret lair where she discovers who Grandpa was. Meanwhile, Trevor comes across the old ECTO-1 and gets her running again.<\/p>\n

\u00a0So yes, there is something strange in the neighborhood (sorry, couldn\u2019t resist) and it involves an old, abandoned mine in a nearby mountain. It also involves Ivo Shandor, the occultist\/architect who designed the building (aka \u201cSpook Central\u201d) in the first movie, and (SPOILER ALERT!<\/strong>) the return of Gozer the Gozerian. It\u2019s up to the kids and their new friends to save the day and the world.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Director\/co-writer Jason Reitman (Juno), son of original director Ivan, takes a noticeably more serious approach to Ghostbusters: Afterlife<\/strong>. While it doesn\u2019t prove fatal, it does make for a rather bizarre viewing experience. Instead of funny throughout, it\u2019s only occasionally amusing. It\u2019s mostly about these kids investigating the weirdness going on in their town. On that level, it\u2019s reasonably entertaining. It seems like the younger Reitman wants to give Ghostbusters: Afterlife<\/strong> an identity of its own, but also wants to pay homage to the original by trotting out familiar gags, props, lines and characters. That\u2019s all well and good, but it feels inconsistent with the rest of the movie. At one point, a character asks to make a phone call and somebody says….. I think you know. It\u2019s as big an eye-roller as it sounds.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It would be impossible to put together as awesome a cast as the original Ghostbusters. In my own personal opinion, none of today\u2019s \u201ccomedy stars\u201d are as funny or talented as Murray, Aykroyd and Ramis. I shudder to think how a Ghostbusters sequel would turn out with Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill and Michael Cera in the lead roles. Thank God Reitman didn\u2019t go that way. That being said, let\u2019s look at what he did do. Mckenna Grace does great work as Phoebe. This is a brilliant kid who tries to compensate for her social shortcomings by telling bad jokes that always land with a thud. She plays the role with deadpan conviction. This kid is going places, I\u2019m certain of it. The same goes for Wolfhard as a typical sullen teen trying to fit in with his peers. Coon has some good scenes with co-star Rudd whose character she starts dating.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The special effects in Ghostbusters: Afterlife <\/strong>are mighty impressive. Sure, I prefer the old school FX of the original, but the ones in the new movie are great too. I\u2019m especially fond of the scene in Wal-Mart where Rudd\u2019s character comes under attack by a horde of miniature Stay-Puft Marshmallow men. One shot is reminiscent of one of the more gruesome scenes in Gremlins, one involving a blender.<\/p>\n

\u00a0SPOILER ALERT!<\/strong> I don\u2019t know if this is actually a spoiler as it\u2019s been known for a while, but most of the original cast shows up in character in Ghostbusters: Afterlife<\/strong>. This includes Murray, Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson as well as Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts. Don\u2019t count out Ramis; Reitman finds a way to work him in and it\u2019s beautiful really. It\u2019s as touching a goodbye as one could expect. The film is dedicated to Ramis too. In any event, it\u2019s great to see the guys come together for one more job. They\u2019ve aged, but they\u2019ve still got it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In general, I like Ghostbusters: Afterlife <\/strong>even if it doesn\u2019t reach the insane comic heights of the one that started it all. It starts out slowly, but gets better as it goes along. A couple of notes; it completely disregards the 2016 all-girl reboot (it\u2019s the true Ghostbusters III) and there are two bonus scenes, one mid-credits and one at the very end (it\u2019s worth sticking around for!). No surprise, the stage is set for future installments and I wouldn\u2019t mind seeing where things go from here. I just hope Reitman ups the comedy ante.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Comedy-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 124 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (supernatural action and some suggestive references)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jason Reitman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Gil Kenan and Jason Reitman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Rob Simonsen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Eric Steelberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 19, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Carrie Coon, Paul Rudd, Celeste O\u2019Connor, Logan Kim, Bokeem Woodbine, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6927,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies","category-sequels-remakes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Ghostbusters-Afterlife-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6643"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6929,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6643\/revisions\/6929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}