Rent Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

Poor Sequel/Reboot - Ghostbusters: Afterlife review by GI

Oh Dear! A lacklustre attempt to revitalise an old franchise into a new one. It's a flop doing away with the comedy and witticisms of the 1984 original for a kids adventure style film, a sort of Goonies with ghostly monsters and demons. I'm sure youngsters may be entertained here but as a special effects film it unashamedly tries for fan worship with similarities to the beloved original and then tries to do something new. What results is an unfunny film. The story is that Callie (Carrie Coon), estranged daughter of one of the original Ghostbuster team, takes her two children to the grubby farm of her father who has died. Falling on hard times they decide to live there and the children discover it's a hotbed of supernatural activity and their grandad had all the old ghost busting kit in his basement including the iconic car. This cues some tired old chases and confrontations with demons and such. Paul Rudd tries his best here but isn't in the film enough to make an impact and the return of Dan Ackroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson and Sigourney Weaver do nothing but remind you this is poor compared to the original and that wasn't that good.....was it? I enjoyed the 2016 reboot much more.

Well Written Love Letters are a good thing... - Ghostbusters: Afterlife review by Strovey

It could be said that Ghostbusters: Afterlife is pandering to the ultra-fans and old people who, now arthritic and grey, long after the original Ghostbusters. True the set-up follows on from the previous story and a not-to-surprising reveal at the end brings us full circle. The observant will notice set pieces and effects as clear and obvious nods to the original but come on folks, Ivan Reitman is the original director’s son, so to some extent it is in his blood. After the huge pile-on for Ghostbusters [2016] some of which was deserved but a lot of was extremely vindictive the makers of ‘Afterlife’ saw what happened and could have been forgiven for making a simple update treatment like Disney Star Wars sequels – rinse and repeat and keep the disgruntled happy.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife is not a simple repaint of an old ship. If you watch the beautifully crafted and framed shots, vistas as wide as a fan’s smile, gorgeous set-up scenes bathed in beautiful golden ethereal light, exquisitely captured and directed by cinematography Eric Steelberg, you could be forgiven if points thought you were watching an entirely different type of film. I was mesmerised by some simple scenes. To add to this many horror filmmakers would do well to watch this film to see how some scenes that are ‘scary’ do not need to be shot in murky unwatchable dark. To say I was impressed by this aspect of the film is an understatement.

Simple said Ghostbusters: Afterlife is a heartfelt and splendid love letter to the original duo of films. You can see it in the top-notch casting, the coherent story and the enormous sense of fine the runs throughout the running time.

The film builds up the story slowly which allows good character development, so you know who is who and why they are there. All along the way we have clever Easter eggs to the original story and characters, with one of my favourites Annie Potts popping up early on.

To the credit of the makers, the film does not overly rely on too much CGI and on-screen effects and for some of the criticism levelled at this take on Ghostbusters I just cannot see this as a rehash or reboot but a careful attempt to continue the story, or legacy if you prefer, of the original films.

There are touching moments throughout and although the ending seems a bit rushed and too on-the-nose Ghostbusters: Afterlife for me is a well-made slice of love to the original films, with very good casting and acting and some stunningly simple and beautiful cinematography that takes it above and beyond a simple love-letter, which it is, to those 1980s films.

Quite simply Ghostbusters: Afterlife is enjoyable fun but with that extra polish and sparkle that takes it beyond the run-of-the-mill.

I really liked it.