Ok first thing is first: Make up your own mind about this movie and do NOT be listening to people telling you not to bother, if you are a fan, die hard or casual of the ghostbusters franchise you will Love this film.
Sure, it does rely a lot on nostalgia but why exactly is this a bad thing? It’s called fan fare for a reason and that’s to give us what we want. I’m trying to make sure this is a spoiler free review here by talking only about stuff we’ve seen in the trailers but one thing I will mention is that one of my big disappointments with ghostbusters 2 back in ‘89 was that they didn’t use the same spooky music score from the original and therefore changed the tone of the entire film (still a fan of the sequel, don’t get me wrong) but GB: Afterlife rectifies this and it fits amazingly well considering the whole backdrop has changed from the streets and locations of Manhattan to a dusty old town that could have been used in a number of western flicks.
Going back to the point of nostalgia and being linked to the original movie as opposed to its own identity…. I really can’t see how they could have made it any differently if I’m being perfectly honest, we wanted a legit ghostbusters sequel and boy did they deliver. The kids were absolutely superb in it, phoebe captures the EXACT tone of a Spengler but the real star of the show for comedic value has to go to podcast, you’ll see what I mean when you watch the film!
I believe that this movie was the perfect send of not only for our sorely missed Harold Ramis but also all the original team members who despite admittedly looking old, still manage to rock the jumpsuits and proton packs (especially winston who looks amazing for his age).
Paul Rudd does a superb job as a supporting character, so does the mum, I think Rudd’s character didn’t quite get as much screen time as I expected but this doesn’t affect the quality of the story at all, least I don’t think so anyway.
Ok ok, so I am biased to ghostbusters as I’m sure most of us fans are, one could argue that we would just like this movie because it’s a legit sequel in the same canon universe we grew up with but believe me if it really was a bad film that does nothing for the franchise then I would be among the first to slate it, instead I’m going to watch it a second time today with my family (saw it on opening night in Manchester a couple days ago).
I was highly disappointed by the remake/reboot/whatever they’re calling them these days, not because they are all women (as I love Melissa McCarthy in most things I’ve seen her in) but because most of not all the jokes and comedy scenes felt cringeworthy and just fell flat. My Missus was really looking forward to watching the movie but by 3/4 of the way through we were looking at each other groaning. My point is we have now got what I feel was the right continuation of the franchise, it’s brought the series back on track for the fans and here’s hoping to see more from the same great cast in the future and hopefully more of the original cast members in some advisory roles to the younger up and comers 🤞
Final word: definitely stay till the very end credits like you would at any marvel film, there’s a mid credits scene and a post credits. The post credits scene is AWESOME, you won’t wanna miss it, trust me!