The child and grandchildren of Egon Spengler have inherited his debt and a dilapidated farm. As they start poking around they realize there is more to their deadbeat grandfather than they could have known. Something strange is happening in Summerville, Oklahoma.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife is yet another long-awaited sequel to Ghostbusters (1984) Click here to see my write-up for that one. Afterlife boasts great production values and great performances by the younger cast. To many Ghostbusters fans, the Jason Reitman directed feature can be likened to a highly-skilled cover band taking to the stage with a special guest appearance by the original cast. But there are many people out there who would compare it to the time when Jose Feliciano butchered "Every Breath You Take" and Sting was forced to watch.
THE EDGE
A line from Ghostbusters (1984) keeps running through my head I watched Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
"We had the tools, we had the talent!" Is the perfect phrase that sums up the unique combination of factors that came together in Ghostbusters (1984). You had the most talented comedians and comedy writers of their time working together. Afterlife, has a lot of talent, and every tool you could want in a production, but far too often it falls back on the legacy of the first film, to the detriment of this one.
The beginning of Ghostbusters: Afterlife relies on the props and the art dept to get the audience excited. Which is great if you have seen the original movies, but if you haven't you are shit out of luck. We follow our main protagonists Phoebe and Trevor Spengler and Phoebe's new friend Podcast (played McKenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard and Logan Kim) as they slowly discover some hallmarks of Ghostbusting equipment like traps, the PKE meter and ECTO-1, among others. I don't usually poke too many holes in plots, but there is no reason that Phoebe should know how to fix and operate an unlicensed nuclear accelerator (proton pack), no matter how smart she is.
The first appearance of an original Ghostbuster (other than a YouTube clip of news footage from the first film) happens about an hour into the movie when Dan Ackroyd appears to fill in some backstory. Grace, Wolfhard and Kim deliver wonderful and nuanced performances, that you could expect from a Jason Reitman film, but you leave the picture with the feeling that their character arcs took a backseat to nostalgic props and VFX. They carry the movie and set the stage until our hero's from the first movie show up at the end to save the day. It's as if the producers said to the original cast, "do you guys want to be in a movie, you don't have to show up for too many days though."
I'm all for references to the first film, but Ghostbusters: Afterlife takes the dialogue from Ghostbusters (1984) and repeats it word for word. Which made me go "cool!" then, "oh, they just remade the same scene 35 years later." It amounts to a lost opportunity to create new Ghostbusters for the 21st Century.
And...remember Ghostbusters II? Ghostbusters: Afterlife would prefer you forgot it.
A great misuse of tools and talent can be found in the casting of Bob Gunton. Bob Gunton, for those of you who don't know, is a decorated Vietnam War veteran, one of the more accomplished theatre actors alive today. He's probably best known for his performance as Warden Samuel Norton in The Shawshank Redemption. The clip below should help jog your memory.
In Afterlife, Gunton plays the stand-in for the Ghost of Egon Spengler. A duty he shared with Ivan Reitman in some shots. You would want a top-quality actor, like Gunton, in that role for the other actors to play off of on the day you are shooting. Unfortunately, a lot of what Gunton would have brought is then covered by VFX in the final product.
"We had the tools, we had the talent"
THE LOWDOWN
I wish I was there for this one, to say I was there. I've been very fortunate to have worked with so many performers who I have admired since I was young. I've even had a chance to work on Star Trek. I haven't had a chance to work on Ghostbusters yet, and by the looks of this movie, I might still get a chance. Making Ghostbusters would have been a challenge, especially working out in the dust, dirt and heat of the mine and the town. But, 3 of the main characters in this movie are under 18.
Working with minors is difficult in some respects. You can only work with them so many hours a day and so many hours a week. Also, the law requires minors to go to school a certain number of hours a week. There would have been days when you would run out of time with the kids and you have no other choice but to finish your day. You could fill the rest of your time with other scenes and use a body double to do over-the-shoulder shots and inserts on hands, but eventually, you run out of things to do and everybody goes home early. Short days are always welcome for crew. Working with minors can also be great because they don't have the hangups that many adults performers have. If they have some experience, they can switch gears from schoolwork to acting at a moment's notice. Some of the more enjoyable work I've done in the industry has been with minors.
THE JIST
I hate that I liked this, but it’s a weakness of my generation that we worship and deify anything we saw and enjoyed as children. The movie offers very little that is new, interesting and exciting. It was easy and enjoyable viewing, like putting on an old pair of shoes, but is hardly the Godfather Part II. Afterlife offers nothing more than a sentimental journey, but damn…..I wish I was those kids.
I forgot to mention....Olivia Wilde plays Gozer in an uncredited role for 10 minutes. Why, I ask? WHY?
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