'Ghostbusters: Afterlife' A Review

Ghostbusters: Afterlife is a supernatural dramedy, a sequel to 1989's Ghostbusters II that also functions as a soft reboot of the franchise foregoing the unfairly critically maligned hard reboot Ghostbusters of 2016. The movie opens on Egon Spengler(body doubled/CGI'd in a posthumous appearance by Harold Ramis) who battles an unseen spirit in rural Oklahoma. Cut to his estranged daughter Callie(Carrie Coon) and her two kids, Trevor(Finn Wolfhand) and Phoebe(Mckenna Grace), being evicted from their apartment. They travel to the rural farmhouse which they've inherited only to discover there was more to their reclusive father/grandfather than they thought.

Wolfhand and Grace are the real focus of the movie and are up for that responsibility. Both give incredibly grounded, committed performances, with emotional arcs, humor, and charm while still maintaining their youthful credibility. It's a fine tight rope to walk but both do it with surprising grace. And this focus is very refreshing and necessary for this kind of nostalgia based sequel/reboot. It is clearly a Ghostbusters movie but it is far enough removed and unique to feel different, a distinction many of these types of 80s/90s franchise continuations seem to miss. Phoebe's friend Podcast played by Logan Kim and Trevor's love interest/friend Lucky played by Celeste O'Connor also contribute to this revitalizing quality. Coon is decent but not given much to do, the same with Paul Rudd the kids teacher and Callie's love interest. But that's OK, even correct.

Tonally a bit more straightforward than the original movies, more emotional and less overtly comedic, but it works and just further serves to differentiate it successfully. Visually crisp and evocative, effective but not overly done CGI, much of action blessedly in the day time so it can actually be seen. An eerie transportive score and enough homage/references/echoes to the originals to feel connected but not beholden. Towards the end of the movie it does veer into a bit of transparent nostalgia mining but even that has one highly impactful element. Overall the rocky ending is forgivable.

One of the few successful, fun, maybe even fresh nostalgia properties resurrected for the 21st century.

Currently in theaters, coming soon to VOD.

See It.