We wanted to love "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" but coming into this film as newbies into the franchise (we hardly remember any of the 80s classic), the hardcore fan service littered throughout the film was too obvious, too forced, and too numerous for our taste. There's no denying that hardcore fans will probably enjoy this more than we did but there's no denying also that these elements affected the pacing and development of this legacy film.
Almost bankrupt, Callie (Carrie Coon) is a single mom about to lose their home. But as fate would have it, her estranged father has died and has left her his dilapidated home in the middle of nowhere. With no choice, Callie decides to give her father's place a shot. But soon, she and her family discover the secret legacy that her father has kept from her for decades and it might be the only way to prevent evil forces from taking over the planet.
One fact is true, "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" is definitely better than the 2016 "Ghostbusters" reboot and this was the film that fans of the original films have probably waited for. Without spoiling much, this film was jampacked with references, easter eggs, and even characters from the 80s films. This was designed to be a direct sequel to those films and what we get is a good enough but not great. If you ask us, we're pretty stoked with the new characters that this film introduces especially with the quirky but workable chemistry between Phoebe and Podcast. Unfortunately, like most of the new elements in "Ghostbusters: Afterlife", they had to share the limelight with countless fan services that it prevented enough screentime for these characters to be fully developed. If you spend half of the film doing easters eggs, then that's a little bit forced ain't it? As for the story, we found it to be pretty average. There's really nothing within it that really stood out as great or bad and there's really no surprises here. There are particular scenes that could be considered scary but this isn't a full-blown horror film so don't expect any scares here. Finally, the strongest aspect within "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" for us was its script and comedy. We found it captured the uniqueness and character of a "Ghostbusters" film and we found ourselves laughing to these off-handed jokes more than we would like to admit. Overall, "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" has finally the elements to propel the franchise to a new era of characters - we're just not sure if it was able to push them in a way that will be deemed a success for sequels to come in the future.
Rating: 3 reels
Why you should watch it:
- captures the essence and wonder of the original films
Why you shouldn't watch it:
- takes the fan service to the old films a little bit too much
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