Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) Movie Review

 Hey everyone! How were your weekends? Mine was pretty great. Katie stopped by on Saturday and dropped off a ton of DVDs and Blu-rays for me to add to my collection. So I'll be catching up on movies from the last four years for quite a while. One of the DVDs she gave me was a 3-movie Collection consisting of Ghostbusters (1984), Ghostbusters II (1989), and Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021). I've been waiting to see Afterlife since it came out in theatres last year so I'm glad I have it in my collection now. As you probably saw from the title of this review, I'm going to review Ghostbusters: Afterlife today because I watched it last night and I freaking loved it. So let's get into it. Oh, by the way, I am going to keep it relatively spoiler free, since the movie is only seven months old at this point but there will be some spoilers, mainly because well, it's Ghostbusters and you can't talk about returning cast members without some spoilers. So let's get into it.

The Ghostbusters franchise has been part of my life since I was a little kid. However, I didn't see the original 1984 movie until I was a teenager in the 2000s. My introduction to the Ghostbusters was the animated series that ran from 1986 until 1991, The Real Ghostbusters, which I'll be talking about at a later time, and I would also watch Ghostbusters II on VHS all the time too. My grandparents had it at their place so I borrowed it from them quite often. We didn't have a copy of the original movie when I was growing up. At least, I didn't think we did. However, my grandparents had taped a bunch of movies off the TV in the '80s which included Star Wars, Return of the Jedi, Superman: The Movie, Superman II, Superman III, and Ghostbusters. Even though I had the entire original Star Wars trilogy on VHS, I borrowed all of those tapes from my grandparents and had a movie marathon of all of them over the course of a couple of days. I also had a ton of the The Real Ghostbusters action figures as well.

In 1997 a second Ghostbusters animated series, called Extreme Ghostbusters, aired in syndication. The premise of this series was Egon and Janine training a new generation of Ghostbusters as the ghost problem in New York City begins growing again and the original Ghostbusters are no longer together. This was the period where more animated series based on movies, comic books, and video games were on TV, like Earthworm Jim, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Tick, and Men in Black: The Series to name a few, and I watched alot of them. But I think that'll be a post for another time. 

When Afterlife was announced, I admit I was a bit concerned. Ghostbusters (2016) had not been received well by a particular group of the audience, who unfairly maligned the movie just because it was an all female cast...well an all female cast plus Chris Hemsworth. Which is unfortunate. I haven't seen the movie yet, though I do own it on DVD, so I can't say anything about the quality of the movie itself. So when this attempt at a fourth Ghostbusters movie was announced, I was hesitant, but when it was announced that the Jason Reitman, the son of Ivan Reitman, who directed the first two Ghostbusters movies, was going to direct this one and Ivan Reitman was going to produce it, I got excited. Especially because it seemed like they were doing a live action movie version of Extreme Ghostbusters as there are kids who become Ghostbusters and are motivated to do so by a mystery that Egon died trying to save the world from.

What I love about this movie is that, while it is very much tied into the original movie, it also does it's own thing. Phoebe is a scientist, like her grandfather, Egon, was, but she is also her own person who is trying not to let Egon haunt her, the way he seems to be haunting his daughter, Phoebe and Trevor's mom, Callie. And I don't mean haunting as in he's a ghost that is hounding Callie, I mean in the sense that his life as a scientist and as a Ghostbuster, and his obsession with trying to stop the return of Gozer, interfered with him being part of Callie's life, which made her bitter about it and kept all of that from both Phoebe and Trevor.

The cast of this movie is phenomenal. Of course we all know Finn Wolfhard from Stranger Things (2016-present), It (2017), and It: Chapter Two (2019). Aside from Paul Rudd and the original Ghostbusters actors (Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, and Annie Potts), the only other actor in this movie that I'm familiar with is Mckenna Grace who played Max's best friend/girlfriend, Rose, on Fuller House (2016-2020), and has appeared as Sheldon's friend, and maybe girlfriend, Paige, on Young Sheldon (2017-present). My favourite character in this entire movie though has to be Podcast played by Logan Kim. He's goofy and actually kind of reminds me of Ray Stantz (Dan Akroyd) from the first two movies, and Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) reminds me of Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) a little bit. Which is pretty awesome.

Something else that I love about this movie is how they incorporate elements from The Real Ghostbusters into the movie. It's only two small things but as a fan of the series, I loved them both. The gunner seat that you see Phoebe pop out of Ecto-1 in is from the animated series, as is the radio controlled trap that drops from the bottom of Ecto-1 at different points in the movie. Which is cool. With the movie being a revamped version of Extreme Ghostbusters (kind of), it's nice that the people who made this movie acknowledged The Real Ghostbusters existed, which Ghostbusters II didn't, or were unable to, do even though the show was on when Ghostbusters II came out in 1989.

I smiled so much when Peter, Ray, Winston, and Egon's ghost arrived to help Phoebe and the other new Ghostbusters. Especially when Gozer once again asked Ray if he was a god, and, after some hesitation and a stern glare from both Peter and Winston, he remembered to take Winston's advice from the first movie, and said yes. They got blasted anyway, but still, Ray remembered after 35 years to say yes when asked if he was a god. I also smiled really hard during the end credits when the original Ray Parker Jr. version of "Ghostbusters" played over the beginning of the closing credits, and then went into mid-credits scenes with Janine and Winston, and then another with Peter and Dana (Sigourney Weaver) where Dana uses the electric shock machine on Peter that he used on that guy at the beginning of the original movie when trying to see if the girl had psychic abilities. So awesome.

I have only one very minor criticism about the movie. And that's that they immediately went with Gozer for the villain again in this movie even though they could've come up with another threat. I knew they weren't going to with Vigo the Carpathian from Ghostbusters II, but they could've come up with a new threat fairly easily. But, I can't fault them too hard being that Gozer is the most recognizable villain in the Ghostbusters franchise. Oh and I also wish that Slimer was in it and that we'd have gotten the return of Walter Peck, but I guess they had the Slimer analogue with Muncher, the metal eating ghost, and they couldn't get William Atherton, the actor who played Peck, to come back either. Oh well.

Overall I had a really good time with this movie and I'm excited for the sequel, which was announced as being in development back in April, as well as the animated movie which is also in development. If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend that you do because it's pretty good. Yes, it has that Stranger Things/The Goonies feel to it, but honestly, I'm okay with that. It's 2022, not 1984, movies like this are going to have that modern feeling to it whether it's a sequel, remake, or reboot. It's going to feel modern.

Alright folks that's going to be it for me for today. But I have more blog posts coming your way this week, including a review of the season premiere of Love, Victor, and maybe the entire 3rd season, depending on how much of the season drops this week on Disney+. So until then have a great day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.