Main cast: Carrie Coon (Callie Spengler), Finn Wolfhard (Trevor Spengler), Mckenna Grace (Phoebe Spengler), Bokeem Woodbine (Sherman Domingo), Logan Kim (Podcast), Celeste O’Connor (Lucky Domingo), Paul Rudd (Gary Grooberson), Bill Murray (Dr Peter Venkman), Dan Aykroyd (Dr Raymond Stantz), Ernie Hudson (Dr Winston Zeddemore), Annie Potts (Janine Melnitz), and Sigourney Weaver (Dana Barrett)
Director: Jason Reitman
No, I didn’t ask for Ghostbusters: Afterlife either, especially not after subjecting myself to that cringe-filled reboot, but I’m glad this one exists. It was as if Jason Reitman, after seeing how badly the reboot bungled everything up to the point of shaming everything his father and the original cast had built, had decided to rectify the situation so that the end of the Ghostbusters franchise will not go down in history as that… thing… with four women loudly flailing and screaming in the most unfunny manner possible while completely missing the whole point.
Tonally, this movie takes after the first two Ghostbusters film, with less abrasive kind of comedy balanced in a way that appeals to both kids and adults. I’m also impressed at how the script, co-written by Mr Reitman, is a lovely introduction of the franchise to people unfamiliar with the legacy movies while paying a loving tribute to those movies and, of course, to the late Harold Ramis.
Basically, in the years after the events in the second movie, the number of ghosts that needed busting fell off sharply. Money was tight, but the final nail in the coffin came when Egon Spengler, convinced that there would be an apocalypse hitting the world soon, became frustrated when no one, not even his good friend Ray, believed him. He took off with nearly all their equipment and even the Ecto-1 vehicle and ran off to Summerville in Oklahoma. The Ghostbusters were no more after that.
There is a reason why Egon came to that rustic small mining town, and folks that remember events in the first Ghostbusters movie—the 1984 film, please; we do not speak of the reboot in polite company—will get it more than those that don’t. It is here that the cult leader Ivo Shandor had built a temple dedicated to his deity, Gozer the Gozerian, and he was planning to bring that deity into this world so that the deity and he can rule over the world together. The original Ghostbusters thwarted Gozer’s efforts to make its grand hello in the first movie, and now Egon wanted to clean up loose ends and ensure that Gozer would never step foot again into this world.
Sadly, when the movie opens, he fails to trap some ghostly entity from the mines, and dies as a result. His face is shrouded in shadows because, you know, Mr Ramis passed away in 2014, and alas, there ends the mortal career of Mr Spengler. I admit, I choke up a bit there, because I had a crush on Mr Spengler back in those days. Nerds are my weakness, you know.
We then cut to a year later, when Egon’s estranged daughter, Callie, is forced to pack up and drag her two kids Trevor and Phoebe to Summerville to live in Egon’s very run down farmhouse. This is because she can’t pay rent anymore, so it’s back to her hated Daddy’s place or bust.
While she then spends all her screen time drunk or uttering eye-rolling sarcastic barbs, her kids have to fend for themselves.
Phoebe, the younger kid, is already taking after her grandfather and is a mechanical genius even at 12. She soon learns that there is a ghost in the place, and this ghost shows her her grandfather’s secret basement lab and encourages her to reassemble Egon’s ghostbusting equipment. She also befriends Podcast, a kid in her class that fancies himself a podcaster of conspiracy theories, ghost stories, and more, and predictably enough these two are soon Ghostbuster novices in training.
While Phoebe is slowly discovering the identity and legacy of her grandfather (that useless Callie never even bothers to tell her kids about their grandfather, not even his name), Trevor is trying to get close to Lucky, a server in the local eatery and also the daughter of the sheriff (they always are) and in the process learns that not everything is fine in this place. Oh, and he discovers the Ecto-1 and tries to get it working again.
Also joining the party is Gary Grooberson, a teacher at Phoebe’s school. Actually, he just lets his class watch horror films while he does his thing in the room behind the class. He fancies himself a seismologist, and he’s here in Summerville to learn why the place keeps having these earthquakes when the place is not located anywhere near a fault line or a volcano. He’s also a fanboy of the Ghostbusters and, sadly, the love interest of Callie. I don’t know why anyone loves Callie. She’s a horrible person, an emotionally negligent and distant mother, lacks any intellectual curiosity about her surroundings, and acts like the world revolves around her pity party. Oh, and she’s a drunkard.
Why is this hateful wretch even in this movie anyway? They could have made Gary the guardian of those two kids or something, and spare me the agony of wanting to wring Callie’s neck so badly each time she is in a scene, only to realize that I can’t do that and can only suffer her presence.
Oh right, she’s here because Gozer will need the Gatekeeper and Keymaster. If there is one issue in this movie aside from Callie, it’s how the story can mirror the whole Gozer thing in the first movie a little too faithfully to the point that I find this film very predictable in its second half. This won’t be an issue to folks that haven’t seen those movies, I suspect, but me, I can see the twists and turns coming from the moment I spot the first blatant hint that Gozer is going to show up as the big bad.
However, much of everything else about Ghostbusters: Afterlife is solid. The younger cast members are good in their roles; they are adorable instead of terribly awkward and wooden like most younger actors tend to be, and there is a chemistry between Phoebe and her brother as well as Podcast that works very well. The humor works for the most part, and I find myself laughing out loud a few times throughout the movie. I can’t help remembering that I didn’t even break out a weak chuckle while watching the reboot.
While the plot isn’t anything groundbreaking, I love how it successfully integrates the tale of Phoebe learning to be a Ghostbuster in her own right with a lot of lovely fanservice and tributes that do not break my immersion at all.
I especially love the closure given to the rest of the old school Ghostbusters, especially Winston that tends to be forgotten or be reduced to “that black guy” when one talks about the original four. Here, he actually comes off as a character in his own right. Oh, and there is a nice closure for Dana and Peter, while Ray will always be Ray. Janine is here too, and she is more mellow, even melancholic as, after all, Egon has passed on. Janine and Winston have a short scene that cement how close they and Ray have become over the years, and it’s really sweet. Okay, I think I have a little bit of tearing up during these moments, but don’t tell anyone.
Still, the fanservice never overpowers or takes the movie away from the younger cast members, as this movie is all about passing the torch to a new generation of Ghostbusters.
I really like how Mr Reitman and his people put Ghostbusters: Afterlife together. It’s a fun movie that balances humor and interpersonal friendships very well, free of cynicism in a way that recalls the sense of fun and wonder I had when I first watched the original movie. This movie is also free of the eye-rolling use of identity politics to mask its own inadequacies, and the hilarious irony is that this movie has a far more memorable and effective strong-minded female protagonist, while the reboot, for all its screeching about how it is about feminism and everyone that dislikes it is an alt-right Nazi incel misogynist, ended up with four flailing female characters that were screechy idiots.
So yes, this is the kind of fanservice, nostalgia bait, and solid entertainment that I can get behind. Two thumbs up!
Oh, and Paul Rudd must never shave his face again. I forbid it, because he looks super hot here with that facial hair.
