Ghostbusters: Afterlife SPOILER-FILLED Movie Review

I have now seen Ghostbusters: Afterlife (buy tickets here) twice. The first time was at the premiere in New York City on November 15th, and the second was at the shitty AMC theater in Rockville Centre, New York on November 19th. I've already written a spoiler-free review. This will be my SPOILER-FILLED REVIEW. So, if you still haven't seen the film and are avoiding spoilers, don't read any further. Now that you've been sufficiently warned, let's continue...

[ SPOILER-FREE SYNOPSIS ]

Having been evicted, Callie (Carrie Coon) and her children Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) move to an old farmhouse in Summerville, Oklahoma that Carrie recently inherited from her estranged father. With the help of their classmates Lucky (Celeste O'Connor) and "Podcast" (Logan Kim), and substitute teacher Mr. Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), they solve the mystery of why the town has been shaking on a daily basis.

That synopsis paragraph was your last chance to turn back. FROM HERE ON, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

[ SPOILER-FILLED THOUGHTS ]

Okay, here's the deal. I promised that I would write a spoiler-filled review. I typed up a bunch of quick notes. Now I'm sitting here trying to piece those notes together into a coherent review a week later. I don't really have it in me to try to get this to all flow together nicely, so I'm just going to bullet-point this somewhat randomly. Consider this a list of thoughts, opinions, observations, and nitpicks. For a more traditional-style review, which may cover some things that I don't mention below, see my spoiler-free review

• Some people are calling this "Ghostbusters 3". No, it is NOT "Ghostbusters 3". That was the 2009 video game, which featured the final performance of Harold Ramis as Egon Spengler. Sadly, that performance will be lost to time since Sony has no desire to convert the assets into a CGI direct-to-video movie like Warner Brothers did with the Lego Batman 2 video game (released on home video as Lego Batman: The Movie - DC Super Heroes Unite). Afterlife is more like Star Trek: Generations (1994): the movie that bridges the old series and the new series.

• Ghostbusters: Afterlife feels more like a "fan film" than some of the real fan films I've seen. It's fun and is meant to be a tribute not only to Harold Ramis, but also to all of the Ghostheads who have kept this film franchise alive over the past 37 years. Essentially, it presents the fans as Ghostbusters. The equivalent of us playing with our Kenner toys on screen. This movie is pure wish fulfillment for us as kids.

• Jason made a concerted effort to "keep it real" by utilizing callbacks, effects, and music that hearken back to the 1984 film directed by his father. Unfortunately, there are aspects where the "fan service" crossed the line into "complete rip-off". Stop me if you've heard this one before. Two Terror Dogs possess two adults who know each other, they have mad passionate sex, which brings Gozer into this world, and a group of humans bearing Proton Packs must stop Gozer from world domination. If you thought that I was describing Ivan Reitman's Ghostbusters (1984), you would be correct. If you thought that I was describing Jason Reitman's Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), you would also be correct. Instead of crafting an original villain, the script brings back the Terror Dogs, the possession of a man and a woman by said canines, and Gozer itself - and in the same form it took back in 1984, no less! Afterlife leans so hard on Ghostbusters' existence that it couldn't flesh out its own story. Not just bringing back the old baddies, but at some points, having them say and do the exact same things they did in the original. As much as I gave Ghostbusters II crap for following the same formula as the original, at least it didn't, literally, copy-and-paste most of the key elements, including the score.

• Fan films such as Hank Braxtan's Return of the Ghostbusters (2007) - which actually received a small theatrical release - show that a Ghostbusters film can have new villains and storylines, and still be set in same universe as Ivan's originals. One of the Denver Ghostbusters is the kayfabe nephew of Egon Spengler. If Jason ever glad-hands Feig's film as "breaking down doors" by showing that a Ghostbusters film can be more than just Peter, Ray, etc., pass him a copy of Return of the Ghostbusters so that he can be enlightened.

• In order to make the story work, Jason and Gil shoe-horned in a family for Egon Spengler where none existed previously. To be fair, none of the guys ever mentioned their family in either of Ivan's films, though we never got the feeling that any of them had children. Still, I'm willing to go along with this in order to enjoy Afterlife. What I'm not willing to go along with is the poor way that Egon is treated after his death at the start of the film. What happened to his body? Was it buried or donated to science? Did they have a funeral or a memorial for him? Janine (a returning Annie Potts) calls Callie to tell her of the farmhouse she inherited, yet never bothers to call the guys to tell them of Egon's death? (Ray seemed genuinely surprised to learn of his passing when Phoebe tells him over the phone a week later.) We are never given any answers to any of these pressing questions. For that matter, we are never told with whom Egon had relations that produced Callie, or whom Callie had relations with that produced Trevor and Phoebe. Does the father of Callie's children have visitation rights? Jason and Gil Kenan simply ignore all of these issues. While they may not be relevant to the story being presented, nerds love this kind of backstory minutia. That's where the novelizations could help... but we're not getting one of those for Afterlife.

• As best as I can figure it, the untold backstory is that at some point in the past 30 years, Egon and Ray got into a massive fight that completely ended their friendship. So much so that when Phoebe mentions his name, Ray says that Egon can "rot in Hell". Egon took the Ecto-1 and lots of the Ghostbusters' equipment and just high-tailed it to Summervile, Oklahoma to stop an extinction-level event centered around the Shandor Mines located there. This doesn't really make much sense, and I think Jason and Gil know that it doesn't, which is why they never bothered to explain it. Of all people, Ray would have been the one to understand the situation and go with Egon to help him deal with the matter in Summerville. Peter and Winston are busy with their non-Ghostbusters lives, so they would have stayed in New York. I can't picture a single scenario that would have, logistically, led to the events preceding the events in Afterlife. The only thing that could have led to Egon and Ray's fractured friendship is if Donna Dixon is Callie's birth mother. That's the only thing Egon could have done to make Ray so mad at him that he'd wished he'd rot in hell. On top of that, in the post-credits scene, the Containment Unit at the Starbucks Firehouse still has ghosts in it. Why didn't Egon relocate the ghosts after he left New York? Jason and Gil's story is like bad fan fiction. I've written bad fan fiction, so I know.

• Without having a novelization to fill in the backstory, we don't know why the rusted car Trevor finds in the barn is an "Ecto-1" and not an "Ecto-1A". Jason has said that Ghostbusters II is still canon, even though the movie doesn't mention anything that happened in the film, aside from the use of Ray's Occult and the toaster appearing in the farmhouse kitchen.

• It is assumed that Janine was to meet Callie at the farmhouse to give her the keys, which is why Janine shows up at the farmhouse minutes after Callie has Phoebe pick the lock. Why didn't Callie just wait a few minutes for Janine to give her the keys? Was she that desperate to break into the old place?

• Janine tells Callie that she used to take care of Egon and made sure that the bills got paid, which means that she visited on a regular basis. That means that Janine has to live nearby, presumably as a resident of Summerville, or the immediate vicinity. Yet, she never shows up again in the film proper. With everything going on, you would think she would be involved. Wouldn't Callie ask her for help?

• The script utilizes several common movie tropes. (1) The Terror Dogs possess Gary and Callie, two characters that the movie was already focusing on, instead of two completely random strangers - which in real life would be more likely. In fact, both dog spirits traveled quite the distance from the mines to the farmhouse and Walmart. I'm sure there were other suitable adult possessees that were in closer proximity. Also, evil would have likely triumphed if the dogs possessed two adults who were not known to the children wielding the Proton Packs. See also Vigo possessing the baby of the friend of the Ghostbusters. (2) The kids become quite adept at using the ghostbusting equipment way too quickly. While this could be explained for the autistic genius that is Phoebe, the rest of the characters have never seen this stuff before in their life! Would it have killed Jason to add in a training montage? Even Rocky had a montage. In real life, Trevor would have rammed Phoebe into the side of a parked car during that Muncher chase. RIP Phoebe.

• There are movies where you have to shut your brain off and just let the film wash over you, like the Night at the Museum series, because if you apply logic to it, it really falls apart. There are certain elements of this movie where that applies, as well. For example, the Ecto-1 - a 1959 car that has been rusting away in a barn for three decades - is doing things that it couldn't even do when it was fresh off the assembly line 60 years ago!

• While talking to Phoebe, Ray says the the firehouse is now a Starbucks. Yet, in the post-credits scene, we see that the firehouse is still there.

• Winston now has feelings for the Ecto-1. Since when was this part of his character in the established movie canon? It was a character trait of his in The Real Ghostbusters animated series, which is a separate canon.

• Remember in the 1984 original when Egon said that Gozer can take any form it wants? Well, it must love that David Bowie-esque female form. Not only does it take that form again, but Shandor and his worshippers even built a shrine to it in that specific form in the mines about FIVE DECADES before the Manhattan Crossrip of 1984. I can't help but think that they should have gotten Paul Rubens to play Gozer in this film instead of an uncredited Olivia Wilde. Not only would it have been more original, but it would have been a great "insider" piece of fan service.

• Gozer had blood red eyes in the original film. For some reason, it has black eyes here, which is an overused horror movie trope. Hell, new Gozer actress Olivia Wilde had those same black eyes in The Lazarus Effect (2015). The insulting thing here is that Olivia DID wear red contact lenses on set and looked much more like Gozer. The eyes were digitally-altered to black in post production. Combined with Olivia's wider face, the character never quite looks right. Surely there are actresses who more closely resemble original Gozer actress Slavita Jovan. I do like that the original "bubble suit" is now a bone-spiked skeletal affair with lightning coursing through her body. I can't wait to see the Hasbro Plasma Series figure.

• Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Gozer killed at the end of the original movie? Gozer took the form of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. While in that form, the guys crossed the streams into the gateway, thus sealing it and preventing Gozer from returning "home". The resulting explosion destroyed Gozer while it was in the Stay Puft form. Ding dong, the Gozer's dead. So how did Gozer come back in Afterlife?

• There's one moment in the film I found unintentionally funny. After Gary Grooberson and the kids release a Terror Dog from a Ghost Trap, the spectral dog makes a beeline for the mines. Instead of going in a straight line, the spirit makes a sharp detour so it can cross over the bridge instead of just flying over the stream. Once you notice this shot, you will always see it and giggle because of how odd it looks.

• Elmer Bernstein did an excellent job with the movie's score, even though he ripped off his work from the first Ghostbusters film way too much. I am curious as to why he chose to be credited as "Rob Simonsen". Also, didn't he die back in 2004? He must have one helluva an agent.

• The Mini Pufts are cute and I love them, but they have no bearing on the story whatsoever. They also make zero sense in the context of the movie as HUNDREDS of them come out of nowhere, and not just from the bags of marshmallows on the Walmart shelf. Why didn't other food products come to life? The Mini Pufts show up again during the climax of the film when they just randomly appear in the Ecto-1 for no real reason. There aren't even bags of marshmallows around. They only serve to give Podcast something to do, and to prevent Trevor from using his Proton Pack right away so as to heighten the suspense of the scene. I'm sure there could have been other ways to accomplish that. The Mini Pufts seem to exist simply to sell plushies and merch.

• The whole Walmart scene is a missed opportunity. Yes, it takes place late at night, but the way it played out, you would think that Gary was the only person there. The Mini Pufts, the Terror Dog, and lots of other spooky shit should be terrorizing ALL of the employees and customers. Maybe all of the other people left before the spirits got there. Maybe the manager handed Gary the keys and said, "Please turn the lights off when you leave."

• All of the actors are phenomenal, even though some are not given much to work with. J.K. Simmons (as Ivo Shandor) and Bokeem Woodbine (as Sheriff Domingo) are fairly well-known actors, yet only appear in a single scene each. Simmons gets to speak one line and then is immediately dispatched by Gozer! I get the feeling that there are more sheriff scenes sitting on the cutting room floor. Shandor and Domingo are not the only under-developed characters. Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) can be boiled down to "chauffeur and horny teenage boy", while Lucky (Celeste O'Connor) is nothing more than "Trevor's love interest". That's a shame, as I think Celeste is cute ("Hey, she's legal" - Eduardo Rivera) and there are two moments where her character has glimmers of being more than just eye candy. It's really Mckenna Grace as Phoebe, and Paul Rudd (my 2/3 twin, as his name is 2/3 of my name) as Gary Grooberson, who steal the show. Phoebe is like the love child of Egon Spengler and Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon). Logan Kim is quite funny as "Podcast", who's a bit of a scene-stealer, as well. Unfortunately, we do not get to learn his real name, so I'm stuck calling him "Podcast" (a name I detest), unless there is a sequel somewhere down the line that he's in.

• So many parts of the movie were clearly cut to get it down to a two-hour runtime. (The film runs 2 hours 4 minutes with credits.) We know from Trailer #2 that there was a scene where Phoebe was being teased by her classmates at school. There was also a close-up of a framed photo of the four guys standing outside the firehouse that appears in a lot of the trailers and TV spots. I kept waiting for that photo to appear in the film, but it does not. The trailers show other deleted scenes and shots of less significance. While watching the film, I also got the feeling that a lot was cut out towards the end. Where does Lucky go after they gather up the stuff at the police station? She takes off in the opposite direction in the cop car, and if memory serves, the next time we see her is when she busts out of the farmhouse front door shooting at Gozer (and almost immediately gets possessed). It seems like she made a plan with the other kids, and we'll never know what her part of the plan was. Afterlife seems like a prime example of a movie that should have an "Extended Cut"; hopefully without unnecessary dance sequences. Unfortunately, Jason has stated that there won't be an Extended Cut.

• Jason Reitman's deleted Ghostbusters (1984) cameo is the first thing shown when Mr. Grooberson shows the archival footage on the laptop. Jason confirmed this when he spoke at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Ivan Reitman Theater Renaming Ceremony on November 15, 2021. The quick shot shows his mother bringing six-year-old Jason and his two-year-old sister Catherine out of the apartment building.

• I like the running gag of Phoebe telling lame "dad jokes". It's one of the most consistently funny parts of the film. Of course, it helps that Phoebe is the best new character in the film.

• I did like the sheriff's "Who you gonna call?" line. Some may find it groan-inducing, but I actually think it's one of the best uses of a reference to the original. It's a quick bit of business that even non-Ghostheads would get and it doesn't cross over it being "too much".

• I liked all of the new equipment, especially the RTV (Remote Trap Vehicle). The Ecto-Goggles with the camera function are interesting, but they were never put to any real use in the movie, so the functionality is really unknown to us. The new Ecto-1 with the gunner seat is pretty cool, even though the gunner seat seems like it would be more of a hazard. It makes the vehicle even wider and modern streets don't usually have the room for cars like the Ecto-1 to begin with. The Aztec Death Whistle is okay. It never really came into play in the movie. It was used one brief time to cause a distraction, but that distraction could have been accomplished just by having the kids yell to get Muncher's attention. So, all in all, some neat updated equipment that we never really get the chance to know more about.

• There is a continuity error during the Muncher chase that was meant to cover another continuity error. One part of the chase takes place on Main Street in Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada in front of the Empress Theatre (235 Main Street). We see the theater's distinctive "Empress" signs in the background when Muncher loosens the fire hydrant just prior to the chase, and again at the start of the chase. Both signs clearly read "Empress" both times. A little bit after that, Ecto-1 drives right by the theater, while Muncher is flying over the sidewalk on the left side of the screen. It is in this shot where they digitally erased "Empress" from the signs, rendering them completely black, even though they were seen saying "Empress" a few shots earlier. Trailer #1 showed the signs unaltered in this shot, which I pointed out in my review of International Trailer #3, which uses the finalized movie footage. I think they removed "Empress" from the signs in the later shot because, by that point in the chase, the Ecto-1 was already way past the theater. However, by doing that, they introduced a new continuity error. They should have just CGI'ed in another building in place of the theater in the later shot to cover the original continuity error. (I hope that all makes sense. I can point it out using trailer footage, but I have enough work to do already.)

• Maybe it's just me, but it seemed like Phoebe was wearing fake eyelashes. That doesn't seem appropriate for an 11 year old, and she doesn't seem like the type who would wear makeup and fake eyelashes. Maybe McKenna Grace just has really thick eyelashes. I don't know. I didn't examine her eyes when I met her. I just think they look fake in the movie.

• I am EXTREMELY happy that Slimer did NOT return. The little spud has been in every single piece of Ghostbusters audio/visual media since 1984: the 1984 film, the 1989 film, the 2016 film, The Real Ghostbusters, the Slimer! spin-off, Extreme Ghostbusters, and even the 2009 video game (and most of the other video games over the past nearly 40 years). He's been overused to the point where I'm sick of him. Yeah, Muncher is a proto-Slimer, but at least he's not 100% the same. I also like that the zombie taxi driver came back, in a spiritual sense, of course, as the Miner Ghost puppet for a quick gag.

• The worst-kept secret of the film is that Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), and Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) all return for the climax to defeat the villain. It was nice seeing Bill, Dan, and Ernie again as their proper Ghostbusters characters, which is all the 2016 film really needed to do to not completely piss off its audience. They certainly felt like the beloved characters again. Bill felt more like Peter than he did in the 2009 video game, where his vocal performance was the very definition of "lazy". The dialog between the guys and Gozer was fun, even if the whole scene felt like a fan-created "What If?" scenario. (To be fair, the entire Afterlife film feels like a fan-created "What If?" scenario, which I guess it kinda is.)

• Egon Spengler comes back though the use of body doubles (Bob Gunton [the wardon from The Shawshank Redemption] and Ivan Reitman) and a CGI-recreation of Harold Ramis' face. All involved did a tremendous, and respectful, job of bring Harold back for one final performance as Egon. One of my favorite bits in the movie is the facial reactions from Winston when he notices that Egon's ghost is busting along side them. Ghost Egon doesn't say a word, and I think that's the best way to have handled it. While I'm sure that Maurice LaMarche could have come in to do a stellar Ramis impression, the scene is much more impactful by leaving Egon to express himself though his GCI-created face.

• The mid-credits scene is where we get Sigourney Weaver's return as Dana Barrett...or Dana Barrett-Venkman, to be precise. It's clearly evident that she married Peter. It's a fun little scene in which she plays the "Shock the Nerd" game with Peter. Kinda weird that in both this film and the 2016 film, Sigourney only appears in a mid-credits scene.

• Finally, there's a post-credits scene that starts with the "lucky coin" clip from the Ghostbusters deleted scene in which Janine gives Egon one of her "lucky coins" from the World's Fair outside City Hall. It then cuts to present-day Janine, who is playing with the coin. I'm not sure if that's the one she gave Egon, or the other one she had at home. She's waiting to speak to Winston at his office somewhere in New York City, presumably. Their discussion fills us in on what the three guys are doing now. I'm really glad that Jason and Gil made Winston into a successful, rich businessman. We don't actually find out what his "thriving global enterprise" is. I was expecting to see the building exterior with a sign saying "Ghostbusters Inc.", a nod to the unfilmed original ending of the first film. Winston was always the character who drew the short straw, so it's nice to see him as the most successful of the three. Though Peter's not doing too bad for himself teaching at SUNY (The State University of New York) and being married to Dana. The scene ends with Ecto-1 being brought back to the firehouse under Winston's auspices, while a red light blinks on the Containment Unit in the basement - which leaves the door open for another film.

• During this post-credit scene, Winston says that Egon was the brains, Ray was the heart, Peter was the skeptic, and that he was the sex appeal. The fans have always said that Peter was the "mouth" and that Winston wad the "soul" of the group. While Winston calling himself the "sex appeal" was chuckle-inducing, I have to wonder why Jason and Gil changed it.

• It's nice to know that Sony has the "Lucky Coin" deleted scene in full color high-definition. Will we see it on the Afterlife Blu-ray, or the expected revised Ghostbusters Blu-ray in 2024? It would be nice if all of those old DVD-era deleted scenes would be re-released in better quality in HD, if the footage exists. If it doesn't, at least re-transfer the material from the workprint source and present it anamorphically. Material in 4:3 Letterbox is *so* 20 years ago!

Despite its many flaws, many of which I just ran down, it is a vast improvement over the 2016 parody. Ghostbusters: Afterlife is a genuinely touching tribute to Harold Ramis and to Ghostheads. Go see Ghostbusters: Afterlife in theaters now (buy tickets here).