Ghostbusters: Afterlife – an Impossible Weight
“Lots of fan services [sic] but that’s what we asked for.” – IMDb “Top Review” of Ghostbusters: Afterlife
I kept wondering when our collective nostalgia machine – a metaphysical database of shared memories and beloved IPs – would reach peak capacity, causing a rift in the space-time continuum and raining hell down on the general pop-culture populace. In that regard, it kind of makes perfect sense that Ghostbusters: Afterlife is the chosen form of the destructor.
Even the most cynical of films exhibit a clear distinction between commerce and creativity. Ghostbusters: Afterlife melts these two notions together with the consistency of so much marshmallow goop. Its goal is not to tell a story, but to cross the generational streams with enough conviction to get you (or your kids) to shell out for the tie-in merchandise lining store shelves right now.
Case in point: when science teacher Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd) picks up a carton of Baskin-Robbins at the cleanest and most desolate Wal-Mart in the known universe, only to discover a bunch of CGI Stay-Puft Marshmallow Kids. Shot and cut like a commercial, it conveys one thing: why not head out to Walley World after the movie and pick up the plastic-and-plush likenesses of these Minions-esque cuties?
Not a Creative Engine
In other words, Ghostbusters: Afterlife is Ghostbusters as a brand, not a creative engine. It anticipates audience mentality in hopes of giving us exactly what we want, while actively avoiding any fresh creative territory. It’s the fusion of test-audience notes and blogger complaints into Hollywood creative prerogative. (And in that sense, it’s a lot like David Gordon Green’s sequel-erasing Halloween reboot.)
I’m old enough to admit that Ghostbusters has been a brand since its initial box-office success. But in the past, the creative teams placed storytelling, comedic interplay, and visual spectacle above the inevitable flood of videogames, action figures, and cereal tie-ins.
And, like many others, I was an active consumer of all that stuff in the late 1980s.
Total Protonic Reversal
In a move that signals a sort of total protonic reversal, Jason Reitman – son of Ivan, who directed the ’84 and ’89 films – has taken the helm, draining most of the humor from the proceedings and slathering the story in sappy sentiment. Because this time, it’s personal (I guess).
It’s interesting how Reitman and co-writer Gil Kenan take what should be an exciting premise, full of discovery and adventure, and reduce it to a rote coming-of-age tale. For the generation that grew up with the original films and Saturday-morning cartoon, Ghostbusters: Afterlife is jammed with as many in-jokes and Easter Eggs as you can imagine…but is that really a good thing?
I don’t hate remakes on principle; I can even appreciate little nods to what came before. But Ghostbusters: Afterlife is comprised almost entirely of references of its forebears, to the point where it fails to convey any personality of its own.
The Kids Aren’t Alright
The plot hurriedly introduces Egon Spengler’s daughter Callie (Carrie Coon) and her children: Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) and Trevor (the increasingly charmless Finn Wolfhard). The family has fallen on hard times, leaving them to inherit Egon’s ramshackle dirt farm in the middle of an Oklahoma wheat field. Of course, this unappealing piece of real estate presents more than meets the eye.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife underlines “Stranger Things”’ continued influence on popular culture, to the point where casting Wolfhard has less to do with his thespian talents than snagging interest from the kids (and kids-at-heart) who made that Netflix series a hit.
That said, Trevor’s gawky presence barely registers, since his adolescent tendencies are so woefully generic (he has a crush on waitress Lucky (Celeste O’Connor) and is into fixing cars). What’s more, his character disappears for abnormally long stretches of the film, as if Reitman and Kenan didn’t know how to properly incorporate him into the plot.
More head-shaking decisions include making Lucky’s appearances so random that she never acquires any real agency (she has a boyfriend – though that angle isn’t explored – and her dad’s the chief of police). By the time she puts on a Ghostbuster uniform, it feels more like an obligation than a logical character development.
Similarly, Podcast (Logan Kim) – who befriends Phoebe during their shared summer-school stint – is not quite obnoxious, but also not very endearing. In another bit of pop-culture recycling, his character is basically a tech-upgraded version of Data from The Goonies. On top of that, how does he have such expensive-looking podcasting gear?
As one-note supporting characters, Lucky and Podcast are steamrolled by the unbalanced script. Even Trevor and Phoebe’s personalities would be non-existent if they weren’t so heavily intertwined with the already-established Ghostbusters mythos.
But at least the filmmakers spare us the requisite bullying Phoebe and Podcast would encounter in any other teen movie. Small victories, amirite?
The Grace of Phoebe
Ghostbusters: Afterlife belongs to Grace, who is beguilingly good as bespectacled genius Phoebe. It seems unfair that her attempt to essay a multi-layered character is nearly undone by the filmmakers’ efforts to reduce her character to grist for the marketing machine. But with her distinctive glasses, deadpan manner, and various bodily tics, she makes Phoebe shine amid a sea of sameness.
Unfortunately, Callie (audience surrogate for the parents who don’t want to be there) and Grooberson (audience surrogate for the cool parents who took their kids) are marginal presences. Coon and Rudd do what they can, imbuing the lamest jokes and most undercooked emotional developments with their formidable talents, but the script leaves their efforts unrewarded.
Middle of the Road
The first half of Ghostbusters: Afterlife isn’t particularly entertaining (save for a “gotta see it in IMAX” set piece where the kids chase a ghost through downtown), but I didn’t expect it to get any worse. Ultimately, I thought it would maintain its middle-of-the-road stance till the end.
But that’s before Reitman and Kenan steer the plot into a shameless rehash of the 1984 film (with bad CGI). Gozer is back. The Gatekeeper and Keymaster are back. Dogs and cats, living together, mass hysteria. And that’s to say nothing of a catastrophically misguided, double-edged deus ex machina.
What bothered me is how none of it feels earned. The underdeveloped plot leaves every cameo, every familiar quote, every nod to what’s come before feeling like an unabashed Frankenstein’s monster of borrowed parts.
I suppose my moment of mass hysteria came upon discovering this was the filmmakers’ goal all along. I guess the joke’s on me!
Worse yet: there’s such a lack of distinction in the ghosts – and such a protracted build-up before they appear – that Ghostbusters: Afterlife doesn’t even compensate for its narrative flaws with visual spectacle. By comparison, the matte paintings and photographic effects in Ghostbusters I and II went further in creating a convincing synthesis of fantasy and reality.
To the Lack of Wonder
When I was little, I built my Saturday mornings around The Real Ghostbusters. I ate the teeth-rotting cereal bearing their namesake. I had my parents buy me the action figures. They’d record backyard movies of me and my brother playing Peter Venkman and Ray Stantz, respectively. It was fun to have these extensions of a franchise I loved; one I considered a formative part of my personality.
At its best, film has the power to put you in a position of awe and wonder, as if you are a kid again. That’s what makes the medium so damned transcendent. The lack of wonder in Ghostbusters: Afterlife speaks to its lack of new ideas. I was left thinking about those improvised home movies, running around with a plastic proton pack on my back, dodging invisible ‘ghosts.’
Nothing here matches that sense of wonder, naïveté, and carefree misfit humor.
1.5 out of 5 stars
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Crash Analysis Support Team
Jonny Numb
Jonny Numb (aka Jonathan Weidler) is only unstoppable when it comes to word count. He co-hosts The Last Knock horror podcast with Billy Crash, and his writing can also be found at The Screening Space.
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(Ghostbusters: Afterlife movie still from Columbia Pictures.)