Stream It Or Skip It: 'Ghostbusters: Afterlife' on VOD, a Lukewarm Nostalgia Bath That Forgets to Do Anything New

Ghostbusters: Afterlife debuts on VOD after a sluggish theatrical run, preceded by Covid-related release delays, which were preceded by a 2016 floparoo of a franchise reboot, which was was preceded by decades of interest/anticipation for a sequel or something, which was preceded by 1989’s disappointing Ghostbusters II, which was preceded by an all-time classic and perfect movie, 1984’s Ghostbusters, which was preceded by the emergence of the universe, which I’m pretty sure would be tooling along just fine with only the one Ghostbusters movie. Afterlife carries some pedigree with it via director Jason Reitman, son of Ivan, and brings back all the old characters to fart around in a new story dominated by new characters. So will it seem like a new movie altogether, or be haunted by the specters of the franchise’s bumpy past?

The Gist: We don’t know this is Summerville, Oklahoma yet, but we’ll learn that soon enough: Some crazy shit is going on. It involves an old man in an isolated farmhouse. Long story short, he’s killed by a ghost, but it’s written off as a heart attack. Elsewhere, Callie (Carrie Coon), whose last name is Spengler, please raise an eyebrow to that, gets her butt evicted from her apartment, so she has to pack up 15-year-old son Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and 12-year-old daughter Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) and move into the dilapidated dump she inherited from the father who abandoned her decades ago – the very same man who died in the opening moments, the man known as Egon Spengler, Ghostbuster. Of course the place is full of crazy crap: A vertically stacked book tower, a basement full of mad-scientist gear, an old barn containing a significantly modified classic Cadillac hearse, etc., you know, the usual stuff that belonged to a guy who once shot a crackling electricity laser up a giant marshmallow man’s ass.

I pause to note how Summerville exists in a slightly timewarped netherland where a drive-in burger joint still operates and the school still uses VCRs, which I think is a joke, some commentary about school funding in ’Merica. But Summerville also has podcasts – evident by a character named Podcast (Logan Kim), who, as you might guess, makes podcasts – and YouTube, so characters can look up key scenes from Ghostbusters (1984). If you’re ready to say F this movie at this point, I kind of don’t blame you, but I’ll soldier on, as I must. Phoebe has a serious case of EgonSpengleritis, being a social misfit with a monotone voice and a brain for experimental science. She fiddles around with a lot of familiar Ghostbuster gear and plays chess with an invisible apparition in the house with an apparently grandfatherly disposition, hmm. She pals around with Podcast and befriends her science teacher, Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), and together, they investigate some strange earthquakes that seem to originate from a nearby abandoned selenium mine. Yes, Gary Grooberson. Even the screenplay itself notes what a stupid name that is.

Out in the barn, Trevor gets the Ecto-1 fired up for a joyride, which I think might impress the girl he’s crushing on, Lucky (Celeste O’Connor), but it’s hard to tell, because nobody in this movie stops with the goddamn one-liners, not even for a second. AREN’T THEY CLEVER. Inevitably, the characters keymaster-and-gatekeeper their way through the plot, which shakes the dust off all manner of artifacts from Ghostbusters (1984). No spoilers, but be assured, you’ve already seen a whole lot of this stuff.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: I can’t quite put my finger on the title of the one movie it recalls so vividly. Wait – I think it’s GHOSTBUSTERS OPEN PARENTHESES NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR CLOSE PARENTHESES.

Performance Worth Watching: Is it OK if one doesn’t find any of the performances particularly endearing? The script is so annoying it makes you wrinkle your nose at ever-loving folk like Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon and even Bill Murray.

Memorable Dialogue: Some possibly flirty back-and-forth between Callie and Grooberson:

Callie: The only thing lurking inside here is my slowly dying soul.

Groob: Is that what that smell is?

Callie: Well, it’s not dinner.

Sex and Skin: None. TBFRWIWLTFITETAF: Too Busy Fondly Remembering What It Was Like To F— In The Eighties To Actually F—.

Our Take: Callie tries to put a positive spin on dreary ol’ Summerville to Phoebe: “Maybe you’ll make a friend out here.” “Make one out of what?” she replies. This is the extent of characterization Reitman and Gil Kenan’s screenplay allows: Occasionally, a quip reveals something, but most of the time the quips hang in the air like a fart poof, waiting for us to stick our faces in it and inhale. I’m all for elevated dialogue – hey, guess which movie from 1984 did that extraordinarily well? – but this script is several shades too wisecracked for its own good. The characters act as if they’ve seen Ghostbusters many times before and have memorized all the key parts. How else can one explain how so many of them just intuitively know how to work all of Egon’s doohickeys and gizmos? This is not the type of information encoded in one’s genetic material, unless one is created in a screenwriter’s lab to be part of a heavily engineered nostalgia machine of a movie sequel.

Afterlife also makes the mistake of thinking this franchise needs some overcomplicated backstory mythology to lend credence to all the things that happened in the first Ghostbusters. Then it makes another mistake by doing it half-assed and failing to generate any real interest or emotional investment in what happens. When the movie finally gets around to giving us the money shots that we know are coming, they’re delivered with the carelessness befitting not a sequel to a beloved film, but a vaguely disrespectful ripoff. Case in point, when Dan Aykroyd shows up deep in the movie, he’s handed a steaming pile of clunky exposition to recite, because good old Ray Stantz would explain all the stuff that happened to the Ghostbusters since the 1980s, unprompted, to a character who’s a complete stranger, but not really, because the whole rotten spiel isn’t for that character, but for us, the audience.

And you know what? We don’t need it. The Murray/Aykroyd/Ramis/Hudson Ghostbusters don’t need explaining. They were funny as hell. They were goofballs. They became unlikely heroes. They came, they saw, they kicked its ass. They were ready to believe YOU. That chick was TOAST. Now look at me, falling into the same referential nostalgia trap the movie sets for us. Isn’t it easy? Way too easy. And that’s why Afterlife is charmless try-hard pastiche, a shallow, cram-it-all-in mess that’s not much more than a lousy replica of an ’80s comedy.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Ghostbusters: Afterlife is a big fat disappointment.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.

Where to stream Ghostbusters: Afterlife