Like many, I grew up in the 80's. I grew up with He-man, G.I.Joe, M.A.S.K, Transformers and, yup, you guessed it, The Ghostbusters. I remember the first time Dad let me watch the VHS (For those of you playing at home, a VHS was the version of streaming movies, but in physical form, similar to DVD's but I know some of you don't even remember those) for the first time and I was terrified of a few scenes in the first movie. The librarian and especially when Dana gets grabbed by arms in the chair and dragged into the kitchen. As a five or six year old, yeah, that's pretty scary. I fell in love with those movies, and shortly thereafter with the animated series 'The Real Ghostbusters'. I'm not sure which was based on each other the show or the movies, but there were definitely some interesting ideas in the cartoon. But, my childhood is not why you're here reading. You want to know how Ghostbusters: Afterlife (GBA) held up to the original series. I'm getting to that. I promise there was a reason for this first paragraph.
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| Photo from USA Today |
GBA plays heavily on the nostalgia of the series, going way back to its roots on a lot of things. I loved the inclusion of really small tidbits from the first movie for us die-hard fans. It was sprinkled in just right for me in the first half of the film. And I say for me because, although I loved the first half of the film, I need to say it was slower than I anticipated. Although it hit me right in my heart at times remembering the original movie, I really felt like that half of the movie was really designed for my generation. New viewers to the series might be lost or even bored at times if they can't make the connection to the original movies. Just as a side note, the movie completely disregards the 2016 reboot attempt of Ghostbusters (As do I, but not for the traditional reasons critics have said in the past, but that's for another time). One of the new pieces of nostalgia that was certainly for the hardcore fans of the series was the retractable sidecar addition to Ecto1 (the car) as seen in the trailers for GBA. That was an addition seen in the cartoon 'The Real Ghostbuster' so it was nice to see they went deep with the world building.
The issue with nostalgia is how it is used. Although I liked all the Easter eggs and such added in, the nostalgia presence soon became a crutch as was apparent in the final act of the film. Again, although I really loved how the movie presented the material, there was really very little new. Yes, some of the events that happened were new, but the over-all ark was almost identical to the original movie. I could relate this to how I felt when watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens. All the things were there except a new plot device. That was missing.
I just felt like the movie could have shortened act 1, act 2 could have been what act 3 was, and then act 3 could have been something new and adventurous. I felt like, as I said, although I really enjoyed the 3rd act, that it was lacking something. And that something I think, was something new.
Photo from CinemaBlend
I absolutely loved how good one of the "big" special effects worked in the last act. Just worked so, so well considering real-world issues revolving around the subject matter. I do realize I'm being extremely vague, but I'm trying to not spoil it. It must be seen to really appreciate it.
Paul Rudd was excellent in the movie, but unfortunately, underutilized. It's a shame really. He has some really good, comedic lines just to have his character more or less sidelined by the end. I was super impressed with Mckenna Grace's performance. She played the young lady so well and right on the nose never missing a beat. Opposing that, I found Carrie Coon and Finn Wolfhard' performances to be very lacking. They have there moments, but overall I just didn't believe them. Especially Coon. I just didn't really get the sense that she cared about the role at all. Yes, her character is meant to be very laxed and uncaring for the most part, but even in scenes of tension or where her heart should be breaking, there was almost nothing. An easily fake shroud of emotions. Like when someone smiles at something sad.
I will say this though. It was the first movie I've seen in the theater recently that I didn't say to myself "It was good but I should have just watched it at home". For me, it was worth the ticket price easily.
Overall score: 7 out of 10 stars
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