Ghostbusters: AfterlifeDid you know that many savory dishes are improved by adding a little bit of sugar? Or that some sweet desserts--like a New York Cheesecake--can have a pinch of salt in them? Why? Because just the right amount of sweetness or saltiness can balance a dish out in a way that makes it more enjoyable for the palate. It's subtle, nuanced, and virtually invisible because you are enjoying it so darned much. But use too much, and it ruins the dish, making its inclusion excruciatingly present. Such is the case with the level of nostalgia in Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
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Ghostbusters: Afterlife is essentially "Ghostbusters 3"; it is a direct sequel to the films from the Eighties that bear its namesake, although given a coat of contemporary paint. But virtually all the inner workings of the film are deliberately identifiable for what they are: a long, drawn out tribute to the landmark comedy/horror film, Ghostbusters. It would be no surprise to call Ghostbusters a modern classic. It almost singlehandedly defined comedy/horror as we know it today. As a passion project for some truly talented actors and comedians who starred in the original film of 1984, who doesn't know many of the most quotable lines from it? Or the iconic musical score? Obviously director and co-writer Jason Reitman (son of the original films' director, Ivan Reitman) does, and he won't let you forget it! But nostalgia is a double-edged sword. And Ghostbusters: Afterlife becomes achingly clear as to what it is on countless levels, to the point where it begins to seem like an outright satire of other decades' late sequels and reboots, laden with excessive pandering to fans' expectations, ladling out past glories without any appreciation for the ingenuity that birthed it in the first place.
Let's start with arguably the only original aspect of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, if just to get the plot out of the way. By the way, I'm not going to feel guilty including spoilers here. If you aren't able to figure out where the movie is going from the first five minutes, I'm sorry, but you probably should see a doctor for ADHD. A single mother named Callie (Carrie Coon)--who we never discover what happened to her erstwhile husband, nor her mother--holds a grudge against her unnamed, estranged father (wait for it...), and has two kids who are achingly like the legendary Ghostbuster, Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis), but most especially the younger daughter, Phoebe (Mckenna Grace). Phoebe is a twelve year old savant, who is preternaturally skilled with science, yet seems to have absolutely no concept of world events prior to the time when she was born. And this is just one of many flaws in the storytelling of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, evidenced when she learns that over thirty years ago, the undead manifested in New York City...twice! And she says that she "doesn't believe in ghosts". Seriously?! You can't expect me to believe that a kid this well-read has absolutely no idea that these things happened. Let's take it further, shall we? So the family learns that Callie's father (whose name is withheld for far longer than it is normal for this to happen) moved out to Summerville, Oklahoma and had a "dirt farm", and was essentially the laughing stock of the town. Yet the very first shot of the prologue makes it clear that he was on some private mission in the old, abandoned "Shandor Mines". Yeah, that Shandor who built that big skyscraper where Gozer manifested in the first movie. Fans will get this right away, and if you didn't get the reference...why are you even watching this movie?!
So Callie--who is in the process of being evicted, because she lives in NYC in today's economy--is forced to move the fam to Oklahoma and stay in Egon's haunted house (there: I spoiled it)--complete with an implausible fire pole that leads into his secret workshop in the basement. (What, a cellar door wasn't good enough? But of course, we all remember that great pole from the first movie!) And here's one more detail that drives me up the wall. Phoebe--y'know, the kid genius--is enrolled in summer school. Why? She is clearly way more advanced than she has any right to be for her age, even if she does seem to have Asperger syndrome. The teacher, who is conveniently an amateur seismologist named Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd) with a penchant for showing wildly inappropriate horror movies to these middle schoolers, meets Callie on day one, and the movie clearly forces a romantic connection between them. And let's talk about contrived romances. The older boy, Trevor--who is played by Finn Wolfhard, because "Stranger Things" and the Eighties--is fifteen, yet is somehow also preternaturally skilled at fixing up the dilapidated Ecto-1 sitting in the barn for who knows how long; he is immediately attracted to the first pretty girl he sees in town. He is so fixated on this girl who will barely give him the time of day, that he goes to work at the burger joint where she does, and goes on truck rides through the ruins of Shandor's strip mining operations with her and their coworkers (who are jerks, anyway), and the whole thing looks like a car commercial. Let's stop for a minute to consider why Trevor is even interested in this girl--who is credited as "Lucky Domingo" (Celeste O'Connor), but I'll be darned if I ever heard her name mentioned. It feels like nothing more than an excuse to play to the roles that Finn Wolfhard had (in "Stranger Things" and It) successfully endeared himself to audiences in before, and subsequently ape those tired tropes from countless Eighties movies before. Sorry, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, but The Lost Boys beat you to running those cliches into the ground before the Eighties were even over. There's nothing genuine in Callie's or Trevor's summertime romances, but I suppose the same could be said of the movie on the whole, so in that way it fits.
Perhaps the most emblematic character of Ghostbusters: Afterlife is the only student with a voice in Phoebe's summer school, an overly loquacious kid who calls himself "Podcast" (Logan Kim)...on "account of his podcast". Yeah, that joke is as flat as it sounds. Nevertheless, he narrates virtually every scene into his comically big microphone, and is basically there to be enthusiastic and by association, keep the kids in the audience enthused. What's puzzling to me is that Podcast is too much like a caricature of other comedy sidekicks, like Data from The Goonies; that he also happens to be Asian seems to me to be yet another "too deliberate" callback to those Eighties films of yesteryear being dredged up to glean a few more bucks. Like Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Podcast is compulsively trying too hard...and it gets old fast. Sure, Phoebe's nigh nervous tic of trying to be humorous with bad puns is cute at first...but not five or six times later. There are also times when Ghostbusters: Afterlife almost refuses to take itself seriously as a movie, even in less than obvious ways. My personal favorite example is Gary's trek to Walmart for ice cream. (Of course, the Walmart looks like it was filmed somewhere way outside of the Mayberry-esque small town backdrop of Summerville, so that little bit of product placement becomes even more jarring.) First off, nobody walks into a Walmart with the kind of a jaunty stride and jolly spring in their step that Gary has...nobody. Second, mini marshmallow versions of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man suddenly start sprouting out of their bags, suicidally flinging themselves at Gary, looking cute and disturbing at the same time, but not in any kind of a convincing way. It's like a Pixar cartoon got spliced into this movie. And then, of course, the creepy dog-like beast--Vinz Clortho, a.k.a. the Keymaster--is eating a big bag of Purina dog chow or something. Ha. Ha. Ha. Get it? Because it's a dog...ugh. Ghostbusters: Afterlife is so consistently implausible to the point that I am convinced that the wonderful animated series, "The Real Ghostbusters" (heck, even Filmation's Ghostbusters) is more realistic than this movie. How else do you explain a massive Sumerian shrine barely concealed in the abandoned strip mine? Seriously, all the kids had to do was take a rickety elevator down into the mine, like, thirty feet, and there it is. I guess Ivo Shandor (J.K. Simmons...yeah, another spoiler) wasn't concerned with concealing his operations too much.
Perhaps the movie's most obsequious move is a combo mid-credits scene with Sigourney Weaver (which, goes on too long to remain cute...much like this movie), but even worse, a post-credits scene (Thanks, Marvel!) that unapologetically sets up a sequel. What's next? A shared universe with Scooby-Doo? But the strangest part of Ghostbusters: Afterlife is that, despite all of these myriad cinematic sins, because it just so happens to be a new Ghostbusters movie--and the heavily recycled musical score won't let you forget it--there is some default charm in this movie. Case in point: the inevitable return of the main cast from the first movie at the climax of the film...even Harold Ramis, through the magic of movies. This is where I have found that many people are most conflicted. Surprisingly, I felt like this was one of the best moments of Ghostbusters: Afterlife. "But surely," you must be thinking, "this is just one more thinly veiled attempt to cash in on the franchise by exploiting a dead actor, right?" Actually...for a movie about ghosts that is nevertheless a loving homage to its source material, and given Harold Ramis's significant contributions to this indelible part of movie history, this loving touch was, for me, the absolute high point of a movie that otherwise flounders far too often. I suppose you could chalk it up to the "spaghetti" effect...throw enough good things at a wall, and something's bound to stick. It's just...shouldn't we deserve better?
Recommended for: Rabid fans of Ghostbusters, who will gladly shove their faces into the nostalgia trough. Ghostbusters: Afterlife is the quintessential example of why overly contrived movies by studios that are more interested in making a profitable return than making quality films actually do more harm than good to the memory of the thing that inspired it in the first place. All you end up with is a product by committee that feels truly soulless; and how tragic and ironic is that for something like Ghostbusters?
Let's start with arguably the only original aspect of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, if just to get the plot out of the way. By the way, I'm not going to feel guilty including spoilers here. If you aren't able to figure out where the movie is going from the first five minutes, I'm sorry, but you probably should see a doctor for ADHD. A single mother named Callie (Carrie Coon)--who we never discover what happened to her erstwhile husband, nor her mother--holds a grudge against her unnamed, estranged father (wait for it...), and has two kids who are achingly like the legendary Ghostbuster, Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis), but most especially the younger daughter, Phoebe (Mckenna Grace). Phoebe is a twelve year old savant, who is preternaturally skilled with science, yet seems to have absolutely no concept of world events prior to the time when she was born. And this is just one of many flaws in the storytelling of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, evidenced when she learns that over thirty years ago, the undead manifested in New York City...twice! And she says that she "doesn't believe in ghosts". Seriously?! You can't expect me to believe that a kid this well-read has absolutely no idea that these things happened. Let's take it further, shall we? So the family learns that Callie's father (whose name is withheld for far longer than it is normal for this to happen) moved out to Summerville, Oklahoma and had a "dirt farm", and was essentially the laughing stock of the town. Yet the very first shot of the prologue makes it clear that he was on some private mission in the old, abandoned "Shandor Mines". Yeah, that Shandor who built that big skyscraper where Gozer manifested in the first movie. Fans will get this right away, and if you didn't get the reference...why are you even watching this movie?!
So Callie--who is in the process of being evicted, because she lives in NYC in today's economy--is forced to move the fam to Oklahoma and stay in Egon's haunted house (there: I spoiled it)--complete with an implausible fire pole that leads into his secret workshop in the basement. (What, a cellar door wasn't good enough? But of course, we all remember that great pole from the first movie!) And here's one more detail that drives me up the wall. Phoebe--y'know, the kid genius--is enrolled in summer school. Why? She is clearly way more advanced than she has any right to be for her age, even if she does seem to have Asperger syndrome. The teacher, who is conveniently an amateur seismologist named Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd) with a penchant for showing wildly inappropriate horror movies to these middle schoolers, meets Callie on day one, and the movie clearly forces a romantic connection between them. And let's talk about contrived romances. The older boy, Trevor--who is played by Finn Wolfhard, because "Stranger Things" and the Eighties--is fifteen, yet is somehow also preternaturally skilled at fixing up the dilapidated Ecto-1 sitting in the barn for who knows how long; he is immediately attracted to the first pretty girl he sees in town. He is so fixated on this girl who will barely give him the time of day, that he goes to work at the burger joint where she does, and goes on truck rides through the ruins of Shandor's strip mining operations with her and their coworkers (who are jerks, anyway), and the whole thing looks like a car commercial. Let's stop for a minute to consider why Trevor is even interested in this girl--who is credited as "Lucky Domingo" (Celeste O'Connor), but I'll be darned if I ever heard her name mentioned. It feels like nothing more than an excuse to play to the roles that Finn Wolfhard had (in "Stranger Things" and It) successfully endeared himself to audiences in before, and subsequently ape those tired tropes from countless Eighties movies before. Sorry, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, but The Lost Boys beat you to running those cliches into the ground before the Eighties were even over. There's nothing genuine in Callie's or Trevor's summertime romances, but I suppose the same could be said of the movie on the whole, so in that way it fits.
Perhaps the most emblematic character of Ghostbusters: Afterlife is the only student with a voice in Phoebe's summer school, an overly loquacious kid who calls himself "Podcast" (Logan Kim)...on "account of his podcast". Yeah, that joke is as flat as it sounds. Nevertheless, he narrates virtually every scene into his comically big microphone, and is basically there to be enthusiastic and by association, keep the kids in the audience enthused. What's puzzling to me is that Podcast is too much like a caricature of other comedy sidekicks, like Data from The Goonies; that he also happens to be Asian seems to me to be yet another "too deliberate" callback to those Eighties films of yesteryear being dredged up to glean a few more bucks. Like Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Podcast is compulsively trying too hard...and it gets old fast. Sure, Phoebe's nigh nervous tic of trying to be humorous with bad puns is cute at first...but not five or six times later. There are also times when Ghostbusters: Afterlife almost refuses to take itself seriously as a movie, even in less than obvious ways. My personal favorite example is Gary's trek to Walmart for ice cream. (Of course, the Walmart looks like it was filmed somewhere way outside of the Mayberry-esque small town backdrop of Summerville, so that little bit of product placement becomes even more jarring.) First off, nobody walks into a Walmart with the kind of a jaunty stride and jolly spring in their step that Gary has...nobody. Second, mini marshmallow versions of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man suddenly start sprouting out of their bags, suicidally flinging themselves at Gary, looking cute and disturbing at the same time, but not in any kind of a convincing way. It's like a Pixar cartoon got spliced into this movie. And then, of course, the creepy dog-like beast--Vinz Clortho, a.k.a. the Keymaster--is eating a big bag of Purina dog chow or something. Ha. Ha. Ha. Get it? Because it's a dog...ugh. Ghostbusters: Afterlife is so consistently implausible to the point that I am convinced that the wonderful animated series, "The Real Ghostbusters" (heck, even Filmation's Ghostbusters) is more realistic than this movie. How else do you explain a massive Sumerian shrine barely concealed in the abandoned strip mine? Seriously, all the kids had to do was take a rickety elevator down into the mine, like, thirty feet, and there it is. I guess Ivo Shandor (J.K. Simmons...yeah, another spoiler) wasn't concerned with concealing his operations too much.
Perhaps the movie's most obsequious move is a combo mid-credits scene with Sigourney Weaver (which, goes on too long to remain cute...much like this movie), but even worse, a post-credits scene (Thanks, Marvel!) that unapologetically sets up a sequel. What's next? A shared universe with Scooby-Doo? But the strangest part of Ghostbusters: Afterlife is that, despite all of these myriad cinematic sins, because it just so happens to be a new Ghostbusters movie--and the heavily recycled musical score won't let you forget it--there is some default charm in this movie. Case in point: the inevitable return of the main cast from the first movie at the climax of the film...even Harold Ramis, through the magic of movies. This is where I have found that many people are most conflicted. Surprisingly, I felt like this was one of the best moments of Ghostbusters: Afterlife. "But surely," you must be thinking, "this is just one more thinly veiled attempt to cash in on the franchise by exploiting a dead actor, right?" Actually...for a movie about ghosts that is nevertheless a loving homage to its source material, and given Harold Ramis's significant contributions to this indelible part of movie history, this loving touch was, for me, the absolute high point of a movie that otherwise flounders far too often. I suppose you could chalk it up to the "spaghetti" effect...throw enough good things at a wall, and something's bound to stick. It's just...shouldn't we deserve better?
Recommended for: Rabid fans of Ghostbusters, who will gladly shove their faces into the nostalgia trough. Ghostbusters: Afterlife is the quintessential example of why overly contrived movies by studios that are more interested in making a profitable return than making quality films actually do more harm than good to the memory of the thing that inspired it in the first place. All you end up with is a product by committee that feels truly soulless; and how tragic and ironic is that for something like Ghostbusters?