Reviving an old 80's franchise that died out can be an extremely daunting task. In the case of Ghostbusters, the previous attempt at rebooting the series failed with Paul Feig's 2016 film proving to be a financial disappointment along with lacking demand to continue with a sequel. With Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Sony Pictures makes a second attempt at rejuvenating the series with the latter completely erasing Feig's film from cannon, while positioning itself as being the true sequel to the original Ghostbusters and its 1989 sequel. Although it finds itself on uneven ground at times, Afterlife ultimately proves itself to be a worthy continuation of the series.
Afterlife's plot centers around the granddaughter of Egon Spangler, her mother and brother arriving in a small town and discovering their connection to the original Ghostbusters, as well as the secret legacy their grandfather left behind. Afterlife's plot aims to not only connect with the original films, but reinvigorate the franchise with a new batch of characters linked to the old ones like Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The plot is one that's bathed in excessive nostalgia with fans receiving one reference to the original after another with it sometimes going overboard. Despite this issue, the film is well-rounded by an appealing cast combined with the original Ghostbusters ones, making Afterlife a generally fun experience for fans of the series.
Afterlife's cast does a terrific job of breathing new life into the series with everyone bringing a high-level of energy to the film. McKenna Grace is phenomenal as Egon's granddaughter Phoebe Spengler with her perfectly conveying her characters mannerisms and personality, in addition to getting the audience invested in her characters story arc. Finn Wolfhard does well as Phoebe's bother and Egon's grandson Trevor Spengler with him also adding both heart and charm to the story. Paul Rudd turns in a charismatic performance as Phoebe's nerdy middle-school science teacher Gary, whose revealed to be both a Ghostbusters fan and an amateur parapsychologist. Carrie Coon also shines as Phoebe and Trevor's divorced mother Callie, whose still resentful of her father's (Egon) neglectfulness towards her. Logan Kim also gives a surprisingly strong performance as Grace's fellow classmate Podcast, with the same being said for Celeste O' Connor as Trevor's co-worker Lucky. The return of Bill Murray as Peter Venkmen, Dan Aykroyd as Ray Stanz, and Ernie Hudson as Winston is more than welcomed with other fun cameos including Annie Potts as the Ghostbusters old secretary Janine, Bokeem Woodbine as Sheriff Domingo, and Sigourney Weaver as Peters love interest Dana Barrett.
Taking over the directors chair is Jason Reitman, son of original Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman. Jason gives Afterlife a more emotional tone combined with an 80's Spielberg feel to it. He plants the film with numerous Easter Eggs that connects it directly to the original such as the return of Gozar dogs and dozens of small state puft Marshmellow men that'll excite the most ardent of fans. The story is fast-paced with enough time being given for the development of the characters, along with building the anticipation of when the original team will appear. The CGI effects are impressively done with one of the films key sequences involving the kids chasing a ghost with the old Ecto-1 car through town with Phoebe's character firing a proton pack at it, being stunning to watch on IMAX format. One area of the film that comes across as being hit-and-miss is the use of the original Ghostbusters score with some scenes having the music fitting perfectly, while others have it feeling overdone and unnecessary. As a whole, Reitman does a fine job of honoring his father's previous works, though Afterlife sometimes struggles with whether it wants to pay homage to Ghostbusters or Steven Spielberg.
Afterlife's writing mostly lays out a strong foundation for the new storyline with clever connections to the previous movies. Out of the batch of new characters, Phoebe is the strongest with the audience buying into her characters dilemma of not giving a damn about her grandfathers legacy to wanting to following in his footsteps. Though the characters of Trevor and Podcast aren't as captivating as Phoebe's, they still serve as being effective in terms of selling the new storyline to audiences. The original teams reveal is rewarding, though a certain ghost reveal will draw comparisons to Peter Cushing's posthumous reprisal in Star Wars: Rogue One. As strong as the writing for Afterlife feels, it's not without its share of problems such as cliched use of quotes from the original film like Phoebe's character being handed a phone and asked who she's gonna call, or some of the subplots involving Phoebe's family not being as strong as hers, with them feeling unnecessarily added like the wasted romance between Trevor and Lucky, or Gary and Callie's which feels like a pale imitation of Peter Venkmen and Dana Barrett's love story from the original. Despite being serviceable overall, these subplots are not as strong as the main one involving Phoebe discovering that her grandfathers ghost is pushing her towards becoming a Ghostbuster.
In retrospect, Afterlife is a film that appears to be of two minds: The first wanting to be a true sequel to the original films, and the second being to branch out and tell it's own story with acknowledgment of the past. Reitman attempts to bridge the two together by overstuffing the film with relentless amounts of nostalgic bits that only the truest Ghostbusters fans will enjoy. While the effort given here isn't bad, one find themselves wishing that more risks were taken with the story and less reliance on nostalgia. (The reusing of Gozar as the main villain feels a bit lazy). It doesn't always land and begs the question of whether so much use of nostalgic references was needed, but for the most part, Ghostbusters: Afterlife delivers as an honorable continuation of the original comedy horror classics with its heart in the right place and the utmost devotion to pleasing its fans.
Final Verdict: See It
Images Courtesy Of Sony Pictures
No comments:
Post a Comment