Genre: Comedy/Action/Supernatural
Premise: A mother moves her family into the house of her recently deceased father, who was convinced that a portal to hell was opening up at a nearby mountain.
About: Ghostbusters Afterlife finally came out and pulled in 44 million dollars. For a little perspective, 2016’s all-female Ghostbusters had a 46 million dollar opening with bigger stars and no pandemic. So I think that’s a pretty good first weekend for the film. Then again, who knows anymore. A little side note about this film. It was directed by Jason Reitman, who is the son of Ivan Reitman, who, of course, directed the original Ghostbusters.
Writer: Gil Kenan & Jason Reitman (original characters by Harold Ramis and Dan Akroyd)
Details: 2 hours
It’s hard to talk about Ghostbusters Afterlife without talking about the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot. Because, in most ways, Afterlife is a response to that film. And, actually, you can’t talk about Ghostbusters Afterlife and 2016 Ghostbusters without talking about The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker, since Rise of Skywalker was a correction movie in the exact same way that Afterlife was a correction movie. In both instances, the previous films alienated their core audience in search of new audiences, only to see that strategy fail. They didn’t bring new audiences in AND they lost legacy audiences in the process.
Ghostbusters 2016 was such a strange film in that the cast was great. Melissa McCarthy is great. Kristin Wiig is great. Kate McKinnon is great. The problem lay more with the Sony executives who greenlit the film. They decided to lean into the current trend at the time (female driven comedies) at the expense of what everybody loved about the original film, which was that great cast. It didn’t help that Paul Feig had no feel for the Ghostbusters universe whatsoever. He made so many bad creative choices that it, at times, felt like he was sabotaging the franchise. I mean why would you cast Bill Murray in a role that wasn’t his role in the original Ghostbusters? That would be like casting Arnold Schwarzenegger in the role of a concerned accountant in a Terminator sequel.
Now I’m not going to lie. I didn’t have high hopes for this latest Ghostbusters iteration. Reitman hasn’t had the best career after Juno. Even, arguably, his best movie since Juno, that Clooney flying movie thing, wasn’t very good. If you don’t believe me, I dare you to go back and watch that movie and have a more positive reaction than, “Eh, not bad.” Since then, he’s had Young Adult, Labor Day, Tully, and The Front Runner. Raise your hand if you saw any of these.
In that respect, Afterlife could easily have been seen as a metaphor for Reitman’s career, since it was pretty much dead. Yet he somehow convinced Sony to give him a shot at a Ghostbusters movie and here we are. As I sat down to watch this, I did a little prayer for this movie to be good. Being in California, they practically make you take a medical exam to get inside the theater so it was an exhausting ordeal. I needed the next two hours to be worth all the drama of getting in here. Let’s find out if they were.
Afterlife follows single mother Callie, who cares for her teenage son, Trevor, and pre-teen weirdo daughter, Phoebe. The three must move into her recently deceased father’s house (who she never knew) because she has no money and it’s her only living option. Phoebe immediately starts exploring the old house and realizes her grandfather was some sort of weird scientist.
Long story short, her grandfather was Egon Spangler, one of the famous Ghostbusters. By the way, kids in 2021 don’t really believe that the 1984 Ghostbuster event happened for some reason. I think because it was easier on the story if they didn’t. Anyway, Phoebe realizes that Spangler came here because a nearby mountain showed supernatural signs of opening up a portal to hell and wanted to stop it. And since he’s no longer around, that job will be up to Phoebe, Trevor, and their new friends from school.
Let me start off by saying my favorite new actor is the kid who played Podcast. I laughed at every single line of his, no exagerration. I understand why Sony needs to promote McKenna Grace as the breakout of this film but I mean, come on, if you’re being honest? It wasn’t even close. This kid was as good as Cory Feldman in his Goonies prime days.
I would say that Ghostbusters Afterlife is the breakout summer movie of the year (I think that’s when it was originally supposed to come out). Don’t believe me? Here is its competition: Black Widow, Shang-Chi, Venom 2, F9, A Quiet Place 2, No Time to Die, Eternals, Free Guy, Jungle Cruise, Dune, and Godzilla vs. Kong. I would say it’s better than all of those movies. Maybe Free Guy beats it in a death match but it would be close.
It certainly has all the ingredients for a great film. It’s got great characters, the comedy is genuinely funny, it’s got fun action sequences (I’d put the ghost car chase through downtown up against any set piece this year), it’s fun, it’s got heart, it has a few surprises along the way. And as much as I dog Reitman, there’s one thing he’s great at – getting good performances. He gets such great performances out of everyone. I mean I never understood why everyone loved Carrie Coon so much (the actress who plays the mother) until this film. She’s so great in this as a dumpster fire mother who uses her dark sense of humor to hold her family together.
I think detractors would point out the script is formulaic. But what you have to understand is that every studio movie that isn’t angling for an Oscar is going to use formula. It’s going to use the 3 act structure. It’s going to give its characters fatal flaws and inner demons that must be overcome by the end of the story. The challenge, then, is writing a great movie within that formula. You do that by being as creative as you can within those boundaries. The movie falls apart when you shrug your shoulders and say, “Well, it’s formulaic so I shouldn’t even try.” Embrace the formula then do as much as you can within it.
For example, they made this little ghost creature called “Muncher” that the kids had to hunt down early on. They called him that cause he was always munching on poles and metal. They eventually catch him in a ghost trap, but then that trap (and their proton backpack) get impounded by the police. They need that proton backpack for the final showdown so they break into the police station, only to find that the backpack is behind bars and, therefore, there’s no way to get it. Podcast then sees that the ghost trap is there as well and gets an idea. He reaches in, presses the release button, and Muncher pops out. What do you think Muncher then does? He eats his way out of the cage and flies off, giving the kids entry inside so they can grab the proton backpack.
That’s the kind of creative setup and payoff that a lot of writers won’t put the time and effort into. I know this because I read scripts ALL THE TIME where characters have to do stuff like this and the writers invariably use the old, “Do you have a hairpin” trope which they then pick the lock with. You can do it the creative way, in which case your movie will be cool. Or you can do it the lazy way, in which case your movie will be cliche.
(Spoilers) We do get into some heavy nostalgia at the end of the film. The original Ghostbusters do come back. I realize this will infuriate people who hate nostalgia. But not only did I think it was tastefully done (even Bill Murray had some classic Peter Venkmen lines that gave me goosebumps). I think it was necessary. You needed to course correct after the disaster that was 2016 and getting the Ghostbusters ghostbusting again was the only way to do it.
As you know, I’m a big proponent right now of movies that make you feel good. Movies that make you forget the pandemic for a couple of hours. This movie WILL make you feel good. And, honestly, I think the only reason it’s at 60% on Rotten Tomatoes is because there’s a certain subset of reviewers who don’t like that they’re trying to course correct from the previous movie. I honestly believe that 20-something percent was stripped from the score for that reason. In other words, don’t believe any negativity about GBA. It’s the most feel-good of feel-good movies you’re going to see all year.
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the price of admission
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: You can get around story problems with a little creativity. I noticed that Reitman wanted a teacher character in this script (to play the love interest for Callie). He wanted Phoebe to go to school so she could meet friends there. There was only one problem. The movie takes place during the summer. So what do you do? These sorts of logistical issues pop up in screenplays all the time. You want to do something but, for whatever reason, the story doesn’t allow it. Just remember, you’re God. You get to create the situation. So just be creative about it. Reitman got his school by introducing summer school into the story. And it actually helped the movie because it was a lot more laid back than normal school, which allowed Reitman to get a lot more comedy out of it. For example, Paul Rudd’s character is a teacher who throws on inappropriate 80s horror movies for the class to watch instead of actually teaching.
