Alright! Today I’m reviewing the newest Ghostbusters movie! Hollywood’s spent the past 32 years trying to turn some random 80's comedy into a franchise… and they finally got it right. Ghostbusters: Afterlife came out a few weeks ago and man. It's, like, the perfect sequel.
I mean, the movie is heavily flawed, don't get me wrong. But for the most part, it's a very good continuation of the Ghostbusters franchise and at this point, that's enough to be good.
To start with some positivity, Mckenna Grace was amazing here. I laugh at the inflections in delivery more than anything else, so her humor spoke to me on a spiritual level. And she was pitch-perfect as the granddaughter of Egon Spengler! The delivery and pauses were on point, it was perfect. The movie rested largely on her shoulders and that's a big reason as to why it worked.
I also liked Podcast. They found some really good child actors for this, because those two and their chemistry carried the movie. Paul Rudd was also here working his Paul Rudd charm, which is great because every movie could always use a bit of Paul Rudd's charm.
I also loved the visual effects they used. They tried to replicate that hand-drawn 80s special effect feels with modern tech and the result paid off, it looks amazing. I really appreciated that attention to detail, it made the movie feel even more Ghostbusters-y.
I also loved the vibe. I want to say it was like Stranger Things but that's not entirely true, it just has an 80s vibe to it (Which they obtained by setting it in an area without most modern technology). I was vibing with this movie very hard. Small town America vibes, the entire setting just radiated nostalgic feels. And that vibe that's so hard to do was done so well here. It's also a very specific vibe. The vibe was present.
Speaking of Stranger Things, Finn Wolfhard is in here for... reasons? Because there need to be four Ghostbusters, basically. But he and his romantic interest were so underdeveloped. Especially the romantic interest, she brought literally nothing to the movie. Just do a three-person team! It's okay!
They also didn't bring that much comedy to the movie. The movie as a whole really dropped the comedy ball during the second half. But there's a definite scene of pure comedy in here, set in a Wal-Mart. I was, like, dead after that scene. It was kind of awkward too, the rest of the theater was a bunch of 40-60-year-olds who were probably there for nostalgia. Anyways, the rest of the theater was chuckling quietly while I was literally dying.
I also have to take points away for being a bit too derivative of the first Ghostbusters movie. The whole thing about the crazy guy who built a thing to unleash Gozer is awkwardly done again for reasons? There was really no reason to redo Gozer. Gozer was taken care of.
It also hit the nostalgia card just a bit too much. Some stuff, like a twinkie, was a bit on the nose but the finale just took it too far. The OG Ghostbusters do make an appearance towards the end and it took rather a ton of momentum out of the finale. It felt really out of place. I wanted the new kids to prove themselves, they don't need three 70-something dudes to save them. And then Bill Murray started quipping, which was just... unfunny. It was a very Peter Venkman type of thing, but it just wasn't funny.
But at the end of the day, the nostalgia's fine. It's annoying but fine. I get it. What I really needed the movie to do was blast the Ghostbusters theme song. Blast it. Make me feel it. There was a moment in here I thought for sure it would happen - the kids have costumes, the packs, and they're going to stop Gozer. They get in the Ecto-1 and you have a bunch of sweeping shots of them driving. It needed the theme, we would have been crying.
Overall, I give Ghostbusters: Afterlife a 9/10. "In a world built on legacy sequels to 80s franchises, Ghostbusters: Afterlife stands apart by actually being legitimately great."
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| Cars driving through fields... *Martin Scorcese kiss* |
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