Mark Reviews Movies: GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 18, 2021

One wonders what the original Ghostbusters would have thought of the reverence offered to them, their car, their equipment, and the general notion that they have achieved some kind legendary status in Ghostbusters: Afterlife. This sequel, which ignores the 2016 reboot completely and appears to overlook the first sequel from 1989, imagines that the quartet of jokey, knowingly sarcastic, and generally detached ghost-hunters-and-trappers were once national celebrities. They're now relegated to rumor and myth among a generation that grew up with the team's adventures, although the team is completely forgotten by or unknown to the generations following that one.

In other words, the movie, written by director Jason Reitman (an established filmmaker in his own right, of course, but also, for trivia purposes, the son of Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman) and Gil Kenan, wears its cultural intentions on its sleeves. This is a movie for those who became—and have remained—fans of the 1984 sci-fi comedy around—and since—the time of its release, and it's an opportunity for those fans to pass the love to a younger generation of potential fans. This is a mostly warm and good-hearted piece, as much adoring of the idea of nostalgia as it is of the original film.

One could wonder what the original Ghostbusters—Drs. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Raymod Stantz (Dan Akroyd), Winston Zeddmore (Ernie Hudson), and Egon Spengler (the late Harold Ramis)—might think of this approach to and reverential attitude toward their antics and comedic battles with the supernatural. Reitman and Kenan, though, don't simply want us to ponder that notion. They let us know how the guys interact with and within all this admiration, affection, and aggrandizement.

As one might expect, it's not with the same level of respect the movie offers them. Even though the appearance of the original Ghostbusters here feels a tad too manipulative (especially considering that the filmmakers actually do get all four of them to appear in one form or another), there's little denying that it's refreshing and a bit affecting to watch them bring back just a hint of the old skeptical and sardonic humor that defined the first film.

There's a long, long wait for that moment, though. Despite the genial intentions of that scene, it ultimately serves to remind us just how far away Reitman and Kenan have gotten from the spirit of what made the 1984 film as beloved—perhaps too much so and for reasons veiled by nostalgia, as this movie's tone more or less confirms—as it was and remains.

This story, set in the present day, begins with Egon, living alone on a farm outside a small Oklahoma town, trying to capture a malevolent spirit from a nearby mine, but he's killed in the process. Soon after, his estranged family travels to the farm to set Egon's estate in order. His daughter Callie (Carrie Coon) is evicted from her apartment just before leaving, so she and her kids—Phoebe (Mckenna Grace), a young science whiz, and Trevor (Finn Wolfhard), a generic teenager—will be staying at the farm indefinitely.

There's something weird going on at the farm, in the mine, and, eventually, throughout the town. After Phoebe discovers her grandfather's old ghost-busting tools in his lab, she, with the help of her new teacher Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd) and her only friend in town Podcast (Logan Kim), starts to learn how to use the equipment and to search for the cause of strange earthquakes in the area. Meanwhile, Trevor starts fixing up the Ghostbusters' now-dilapidated car and tries to impress his new crush Lucky (Celeste O'Connor), and Callie starts a potential romance with the smitten Gary.

The sincerity of this story is undeniable, especially in its open nostalgia for the original film. That notion is in the very thread of this movie—from the plot (The big threat here is one and the same), to multiple callbacks (The big marshmallow man becomes a gang of little ones, which giddily and amusingly roast each other, and a destructive chase through town to zap a blue ghost is vaguely reminiscent of a destructive chase through a hotel to catch a green one), to a few cameos (The big ones, obviously, have been mentioned, but Annie Potts shows up for a pair of scenes, while Sigourney Weaver seems like a last-second addition). There's little of this story that doesn't directly or implicitly involve some character, image, icon, or plot thread of the original.

This, of course, is to say that the movie doesn't really establish its own identity. Its existence is so tied to the original film, particularly in constantly making big and small signs of deference to it (the way hands brush, in close-up, against the Ghostbusters' various tools, for example), that there's little reason to care about these characters within their own adventure. By the time the plot allows them to participate in some action, that plot has become so familiar that it simply feels like another, extended act of homage.

The most significant miscalculation of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, though, is that it misses the bigger picture of the original for its smaller details. Basically, there's not much humor to be found in such a genuine act of veneration.

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