Ghostbusters Afterlife (2021)

I think that is pretty much accepted by everyone that the 2016 version of Ghostbusters was terrible. The idea of having four female ghostbusters was squandered and the vocal minority that were able to act like they were right in voicing what they perceived was what was happening to their beloved franchise. Ultimately the jokes were so bad and the idea of putting comedy before the story meant that the film died a death and it seems like they have gone back to basics with this version directed by Jason Reitman son of Ivan Reitman.

The film Callie and her children (Trevor and Phoebe) who are forced to live in the house occupied by Callie’s father Egon who became estranged from his daughter and grandchildren. Callie feels a lot of resentment towards her dad but as the film progresses this softens and there is a lovely moment between Callie and a CGI Egon. Paul Rudd plays Mr Grooberson who is the 2021 Louis Tully even down to the running out of a Walmart and the creature crashing through the door to chase after him and he becoming possessed. 

The thing about this film is that its trying to create its new generation of beloved characters. Phoebe (McKenna Grace) is the new Egon and does very well in being a mirror image of Egon yet having enough qualities to feel new enough. Finn Wolfhard does get sidelined for most of the film as Trevor and only comes into the film in the second half. Logan Kim is the Stantz of the group. He’s a bit over excited with what he’s seeing and normally being a podcast obsessed would be irritating but Kim manages to make Podcast seem likeable and a good part of the group.Celeste O’Connor is the Winston of the group and aside from the romance stuff with Trevor. As she is saddled with that storyline like Wolfhard only gets the shine when the film gets into the second half. As a foursome they work really well even though they are all different people they still come together when needed like they did in 1984 and like they failed to do in 2016. 

Having Egon appear via computer trickery was a nice touch although it was slightly jarring that he didn't utter a word. It was a shame that Harold Ramis passed away in 2014 but it seemed like they wanted to have him in it but didn't know or could get the voice right. I also thought that the romance thread between Trevor and Lucky that didn't go anywhere was a bit of a waste of time. The central plot leaned a bit too much towards the first film which was disappointing because a mix of new and old is always good but it leant just a bit too much towards the old.

It was nice that Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson came back for a bit more than silly cameos. They werent in it all the time but at least the first film was remembered in a nice way and I was worried that they were going to swoop in and save the day after the younger characters had done all the heavy lifting but thankfully they didnt and had some good one liners but it did look like the years hadnt been kind to Aykroyd and Murray.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed Ghostbusters: Afterlife. It would have had to try really hard to be worse than Ghostbusters 2016 but judging this film on its own merits then its a fun film. There are two post credit scenes. The first being with Sigourney Weaver and Bill Murray nodding to the first scene that Peter had in the 1984 version which was fun but not really leading to anything and then the final scene is between Janine and Winston which shows how successful Winston has become and has kept the original building and now keeps Ecto-1 in it. Whether this leads to another film only time will tell but if the films continue in this vein then I wouldn't mind seeing more.