Five-and-a-half years ago, Paul Feig directed an all-female Ghostbusters reboot, which included the original surviving cast in cameo roles as new characters. Afterlife, which was greenlit after its predecessor proved to be a box office disappointment, is a thoroughly different beast: helmed by Jason Reitman, the son of original director Ivan Reitman himself, it centers on the family of the late Harold Ramis’s character, Dr. Egon Spengler, after they inherit his home in Summerville, Oklahoma. Ironically, for a film that shares the original movie’s storyline, it’s not particularly funny; a plodding yet rushed kid’s movie, it’s tonally closer to a Spielberg film than any previous Ghostbusters project.
The movie roughly divides into three storylines: there’s Phoebe Spengler (Mckenna Grace), a scientific whizz-kid who becomes the wielder of a proton pack, and her new best friend “Podcast” (Logan Kim), who’s obsessed with the supernatural. (We never find out Podcast’s real name, an unfortunate drawback for an otherwise positive Asian character.) Then we have Phoebe’s older brother Trevor (Finn Wolfhard), and his local love interest Lucky Domingo (Celeste O’Connor), as well as Callie (Carrie Coon), Phoebe and Trevor’s mom, and her love interest, Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), a summer school teacher and seismologist investigating the unusual tremors in Summerville.
Phoebe is very much the lead protagonist, with Trevor and Callie’s storylines getting short shrift (at one point, Gary even quips his relationship with Callie is moving awfully fast.) As charming as Mckenna Grace is, that’s to the film’s detriment, as Phoebe is the spitting image of her grandfather, a stoic scientist who internalizes everything, meaning themes like moving to a new town, or struggling to make new friends, are tossed aside pretty quickly. The first half of the movie instead just focuses on her learning about her grandfather’s legacy, and examining the cool gadgets he left behind, which may be engaging to the younger audiences who’ll likely identify with her, but prove tiresome to anyone else over the age of 12.
The extended amount of time before Phoebe busts her first ghost (roughly double the amount it took for the original gang to trap Slimer) would’ve benefited from some genuinely funny moments, but many of the one liners feel perfunctory, as if Reitman and co-writer Gil Kenan threw in a load of sarcasm so there wouldn’t be too much emphasis on the spooky mystery, and the looming threat on the horizon. You may smile or raise an eyebrow at some of the more awkward and groan-inducing gags, like Phoebe’s affinity for dad jokes, but there’s little here that’s memorable or vivid in the manner of the comedy from the first film.
The second half kicks into high gear, as the usual apocalyptic shenanigans unfold, and Paul Rudd gets to flex his best Rick Moranis impression, while all manner of weird and wonderful creatures are set loose on Summerville. However, the lack of set-up in the first hour means it feels hurried, as if it was pressed to get to the part everyone was waiting for: the return of the original Ghostbusters. Yes, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson reunite onscreen for the first time in over three decades, and they bring more energy and amusement to the picture than the majority of its runtime. Unfortunately, they’re only in it for what must be 15 mins tops, including the mid-and-post-credits scenes — no wonder they’re barely in the promotional material.
The movie also invites far too much comparison with the original by literally having the same plot (there’s a reason it features the terror dogs and the mini Stay-Puft Marshmallow Men), which, combined with the rural setting, makes it resemble a smaller, cheaper recreation of the 1984 film’s climax. Admittedly, it does lead to a great callback to one of the best lines, which is easily the funniest moment here, but it is so weird how, after 37 years, the franchise is still playing the greatest hits (anyone who felt Feig’s film was too similar to the first may start to appreciate how it remixed its story beats.) Rob Simonsen’s score also feels like a series of samples from Elmer Bernstein’s music for the original film, instead of its own body of work.
Continued belowThe question Afterlife will leave you with is: who exactly is this film for? I can’t imagine kids having much emotional engagement with it if they’ve never seen any previous Ghostbusters media, and I’m not sure why adult fans would enjoy sitting through such a run-of-the-mill kids’ film for the sake of an all-too-brief (if magical) reunion. As a standalone film and a continuation, it suffers from the vagueness of Callie’s backstory (who was her mother?), and ultimately becomes an emotionally unconvincing tribute to Ramis. I will say this though: the film handles his absence far better than how Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker approached Carrie Fisher’s death — Afterlife manages to pay tribute to his character in a way that feels natural for the franchise, and which thankfully avoids using old audio or a vocal double to recreate his voice.
By the way, the answer to that earlier question is that the movie exists for Sony, who desperately want a reliable film series outside of their licensed Spider-Man universe. I share their likely bafflement at how Ghostbusters has had a healthy afterlife (no pun intended) in comics, animation and video games, but no one can seem to just make a movie where the original characters train a new group of recruits, played by today’s brightest comedy stars. (So we’re clear, that’s the premise of the ’90s cartoon Extreme Ghostbusters.) Afterlife‘s post-credits scene suggests we may still get that movie soon, but it’s still weird that we’ve effectively sat through two unsatisfying halves of what would’ve been a perfect revival to get to it.
Let’s get Paul Feig to direct Grace in the sequel.
