Ghostbusters Archives

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)

Posted on March 26, 2024March 26, 2024 by fenrisfil

It’s time to review the new Ghostbusters movie. You may remember that I gave Ghostbusters: Afterlife a positive review, though I noted a number of negatives. My hope was the sequel would learn from the good and bad of Afterlife and truly move the franchise forward. Moving the action back to New York (And the famous firehouse) was certainly a positive. The remaining original Ghostbusters were set to return once more, this time not just turning up for the finale. It all sounded good and the trailer was solid. But would it really be up to scratch?

The Ghostbusters Come Home.

Gil Kenan takes the directors chair for this one. The script is by him and the director of the previous movie Jason Reitman. It’s unknown how much involvement Jason had on this one. It’s worth noting that his father and original Ghostbusters director Ivan passed away in 2022 so was notably uninvolved. Returning from the original two movies are Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts and William Atherton. Afterlife’s Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Celeste O’Connor and Logan Kim joins them. The already bulky cast adds in Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt, James Acaster and Emily Alyn Lind.

The story picks up in New York where the Spengler family have taken over the firehouse and the day to day business of busting ghost. After causing citywide destruction the mayor of the town (Walter Peck from the first two films) decrees that Phoebe as a 15 year old should not be working as a Ghostbuster. Annoyed by this she heads to central park to sulk and play chess but ends up befriending a ghost called Melody (Lind). Meanwhile Nadeem Razmaadi (Nanjiani) attempts to sell off his grandmothers collection of oddities to Ray Stantz (Ackroyd) who finds particular interest on one unique item inscribed with ancient glyph. It turns out this item contains an ancient evil spirit that if released could threaten the world. Naturally, it does get released and it is down to the Ghostbusters and Razmaadi to fix things.

Busting Makes Me Feel Bored.

Frozen Empire is not a terrible film or even the worst Ghostbusters film. It is however very average and ultimately a disappointment. The unfortunate thing is almost every problem could have been predicted going in, leaving little excuse for it. One thing I didn’t predict was that the film would be boring! Sadly for most of it, that was exactly what it was. Most of the fun stuff is literally in the trailer. Frozen Empire, much like Afterlife is a bit too long. Both movies were only about 15-20 minutes longer than the original, but with a lot less going on you really notice the run time. The movie especially drags through the first two acts where after the ghost chase scene from the trailer, very little actually happens.

It’s not just the pacing that is the issue, but also the focus on Phoebe (Grace). This worked in the previous film somewhat, with that story being largely constructed around her relationship with the ghost of Egon Spengler. But the problem is she just isn’t that interesting. There is a reason Egon wasn’t the main character in the original movies. Egon was at least funny though (Harold Ramis was a very funny man and co-writer of the original). Pheobe is no Egon and really doesn’t work as the franchise lead. It doesn’t help that once again they’ve focused her arc on her relationship with a ghost (This time stealing ideas from “Casper The Friendly Ghost”). It’s also notable that strapping a nuclear accelerator to a 15 year old girl and expecting her to fight ghosts regularly does raise a number of questions. The movie examines these, but not terribly well.

Ghost To Buster Ratio.

The remaining original Ghostbusters do get more to do than in the previous film (Where they literally just showed up for the ending) and this was very welcome. Even Venkman gets a scene before the ending. The roles aren’t large, but didn’t need to be. The big problem though is between that and the focus on Phoebe the other characters get almost no time or character development. When I reviewed Afterlife I said that Trevor (Wolfhard) was largely wasted and needed to get actual character development in any sequel. Well, he has even less of a role in this. This is true of all the other characters introduced in Afterlife, none more so than Lucky (O’Connor) and Podcast (Kim) who feel like they have been grandfathered in and do almost nothing. On top of this there are several new characters thrown in the mix too.

But it’s not just the screen time and character development. Many of these characters are just badly written. None of Afterlife characters display the charm they had in the previous film and many of them are just plain stupid now. Speaking of stupid, this is a movie where the problems that must be solved are entirely created by the good guys in the first place. That is almost always a bad idea, but the fact is had the Ghostbusters not returned to New York, none of the events of the film would have happened. This has the embarrassing side effect of meaning that Walter Peck (Now Mayor of New York for some reason) is actually 100% correct this time around. It could be argued Peck is the good guy and the Ghostbusters are actually now the villains!

Nostalgia Bait.

In Ghostbusters Afterlife I praised how they used the references to the original movie. While re-using Gozer seemed a little lazy, all the nostalgia was directly a part of the plot. They didn’t just drop things in for “‘Member Berries” (Thank you South Park for that term) and they didn’t stop things every few minutes to drop an Easter Egg like they did in the 2016 movie. Sadly though Frozen Empire is back to dropping references in just for the sake of it. They don’t waste too much time with it, but I’m not a fan of that kind of fan service. But it’s not just references to the original, they also brought back the mini-marshmallow men from Afterlife. To be fair, the kids in the cinema will love that but they didn’t add much for me.

The villain of the story is pure CGI and largely forgettable. He ties into the new character of Nadeem Razmaadi (played by Kumail Nanjiani), who is the “Firemaster”. This is a rather obvious reference to Rick Moarranis’ Louis Tully character in the original that was the “Keymaster”. Nanjani is no Moarranis and Razmaadi is no Tully. Ultimately it is an annoying character that adds to the movies character bloat. The big showdown is between the one villain and ELEVEN good guys. They are assisted by not one but two ghosts. To be fair, one of those ghosts is sort of unintentionally helping, with the returning favourite provides the most predictable moment in the entire movie. For reference Afterlife’s showdown was 7 people and one ghost on the heroes side and the original was just the four Ghostbusters. Afterlife managed to give each character a little moment in that finale, not so here.

Conclusion

Ultimately this was a disappointment. Not terrible and certainly better than the 2016 movie but it was boring, cluttered and not nearly as a funny as it should have been. This was a step back from Afterlife and many of my concerns I had with that movie as far as the future direction went seem justified. At this point I’m not sure they can fix it with movies. What they do have though is something that could work as a TV series, where they can actually flesh out these characters and introduce new ones without feeling cluttered. It’s worth noting I suggested the same thing after the previous movie. Sadly, this is a 5.5/10. Just short of a recommendation. I will say though, the children in the cinema seemed to be enjoying it. This may be a kids franchise now.

Upcoming Movies in 2024 – Part 1 (January to June)

Posted on January 8, 2024February 3, 2024 by fenrisfil

With the 2023 wrap up out of the way, it’s time to take a look at what movies are coming to our screens in 2024. I’m doing this in two halves, so this is just the first six months. It’s worth noting that several of the big names were actually due out in 2023 but got pushed back due to the various strikes. Dune: Part Two for example was a movie a lot of people were excited for in 2023, but it got pushed back, unnecessarily in my view, due to the strikes. Specifically they wanted the actors available to promote it. These days it’s debatable if the actors actually help or hinder a movies promotion given their tendency to make divisive comments in interviews. Then again, the last Dune movie didn’t perform that well despite meeting audience approval so I understand them not wanting to take the risk.

It’s also worth noting how few superhero movies are hitting the screens this coming year and neither the MCU nor DCU/DCEU have an official entry this year. The DCEU is dead now and James Gunn’s DCU doesn’t launch until 2025. Marvel meanwhile only have MCU adjacent content with their revival of the Fox X-Men universe via Deadpool 3 and three more entries in Sony’s more miss than hit “Venomverse”. This is probably for the best, given the disastrous box office both franchises have had in 2023. It remains to be seen if this little break will help the recent decline in the popularity of superhero movies or hasten it. Disney are putting out two MCU shows next year mind, but I doubt “Echo” or “Eyes of Wakanda” will help much.

First Quarter.

The first few months of 2024 offers several highly anticipated movies, several of which were originally slated for 2023. I’ll start off with a list and then break it down by month. Note, a lot of the movies I’m listing here aren’t big Hollywood Blockbusters. With the writers strike, the major studios took a big hit and as a result have less than normal to bring out. However, often the best movies aren’t from the major studios, so I’ve included a lot of smaller films I think have potential. Some of them aren’t even horrors!

Note: I’m updating this list with review scores as I watch stuff!

JANUARY
Night Swim – January 5th (Horror)
The Bricklayer – January 5th (Action/Thriller) – 4/10
Destroy all Neighbors – January 12th (Horror/Comedy) – 6/10
The Beekeeper – January 12th (Action/Thriller) – 6.5/10
Self Reliance – January 12th (Comedy) – 6/10
I.S.S. – January 19th (Thriller/Drama/Sci-Fi)
Wanted Man – January 19th (Action/Thriller) – 5/10

FEBRUARY
Lisa Frankenstein – February 9 (Horror/Comedy)
Argylle – February 12 (Action/Thriller)
Madame Web – February 14 (Superhero)
Land of Bad – February 16 (Action/War)
Drive Away Dolls – February 23rd (Thriller/black comedy)

MARCH
The Fall Guy – March 1 (Action/Comedy)
Dune: Part Two – March 5 (Sci-Fi)
Imaginary – March 8 (Horror)
NEW ADDITION: Roadhouse – March 8 (Action)
Damsel – March 8 (Fantasy)
Kung Fu Panda 4 – March 29 (Family/Comedy)
Mickey 17 – March 29 (Sci-Fi)
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire – March 29 (Fantasy/Comedy)

January.

First up is the Blumhouse horror Night Swim (Which will be already out by the time I post this), this is a movie that was originally due out in 2023 but got postponed. The movie itself looks so so, but it does mark the new partnership between James Wan and Jason Blum who merged their companies on January 2nd this year. This will create a real powerhouse for horror in the coming years especially considering their partnership with Universal. Later in the month Jason Statham’s launches us firmly into 2024 in solid style with the fun looking action movie “The Beekeeper“. It’s classic Jason Statham, if you hate those movies you can probably skip it but if you enjoy them you can expect to be in safe hands.

There’s quite a few lower profile movies for January too that look interesting. Those after low budget horror fun though should check out the trailer for “Destroy all Neighbors“, which looks like “Psycho Goreman” levels of fun with more than a hint of Alex Winter’s “Freaked” (And not just because Winter is in this too). Another interesting one for January is the comedy “Self Reliance” which looks to subvert “Hunting Humans/Running Man” trope. This has been done a few times now (For example the excellent “Guns Akimbo”), but the trailer looked fun and they seem to have found a new angle to it.

Finishing up the line up is a couple of action films in “The Bricklayer” and “Wanted Man” and the science fiction triller “I.S.S.”. The Bricklayer (Which is already out), looks pretty good from the trailer and is from seasoned action director Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger, Die Hard II, Long Kiss goodnight). Wanted Man is directed by and starring Dolph Lundgren. Dolph has directed a few action films now and all hover between 5-6/10 on imdb, so don’t expect too much. I.S.S. meanwhile is a sci-fi/thriller based on the idea of what would happen on the International Space Station should nuclear war between Russia and the US kick off on Earth.

February.

February sees our first Superhero film for 2023 and…. yeah, it doesn’t look good. “Madame Web” appears to be Sony scrapping the very bottom of the barrel of the characters they have available. Traditionally Madame Web is an elderly blind woman in a wheelchair that helps guide Peter Parker. I’ve never been a big fan of creating a “Spider-Family” when one of the things that made Peter Parker Spider-Man was having to solve his issues by himself. Madame Web at least was always very hands off, effectively just a quest giver. But it’s still just a gimmick hanger on character and not the kind you would make a movie for. This character is joined by three more Spider-Knockoffs, the only one I care about at all is Julia Carpenter, since she debuted it “Secret Wars” back in the 80’s, when I was heavily reading Marvel Comics.

On a potentially positive note we finally get the Henry Cavill spy thriller “Argylle“, though a word of caution on that one: I’m pretty sure that is a bait and switch. The trailer only shows Cavill playing an in world, fictional version of the character and as the trailer reaches the point of introducing the “Real” Argylle…. it ends. Yeah, it’s totally not going to be Henry. My guess is that the author of the fictional in world books that is central to the story is the real Argylle, in what would effectively turn the story into a “Long Kiss Goodnight” remake. This may or may not cause a backlash depending on if the movie is actually any good! Fortunately the trailer did look action packed and fun, so regardless of who the real Argylle is, it may be entertaining.

Filling out the rest of February are some real wild cards. Probably the most notable is Ethan Coen’s “Drive Away Dolls“. The trailer looked stylish but I honestly couldn’t tell much else about it. Then there’s the action movie “Land of Bad“, which looks like a typical soldiers in action type movie but those can sometimes be very good, so we’ll see. Finally, there is another comedy horror, “Lisa Frankenstein“, the plot is somewhat similar in basic concept to horror cult classic “May”, but with the comedy dial turned up to eleven. Lisa, like may is trying to construct her perfect man, but this time she starts with a re-animated corpse and is basically trying to replace bits of it to make it less… dead. Not sure if it will work in practice, but concepts like this are always a fine line between hilarious and terrible.

March.

March is where things really get interesting in 2024, with a number of highly anticipated movies. This includes the delayed “Dune Part II” finishing off Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s first Dune novel. The trailer for this looks superb and it may be the safest bet of the year for quality. The month also sees a fourth Kung Fu Panda movie, but more interesting for me is “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire“, the fourth canonical Ghostbusters movie and direct sequel to “Afterlife”. The movie sees the franchise return to New York and there is more than a chill in the air. The remaining OG-Busters return once more, though it is unknown how large their roles are this time. My guess is you won’t see much of Venkman in this.

We also get a reboot of “The Fall Guy“, an 80’s TV series now turned into a movie. There seems to be little in common between this movie and the series, but the trailer did look pretty good. Perhaps this will be the new “Equalizer”. A potential movie to look out for in March is Bong Joon-ho’s science fiction adaptation “Mickey 17“. I don’t know the source material (The novel “Mickey7”), but the synopsis sounds interesting and this is an Oscar winning director with a strong list of science fiction and horror movies to his name. The very capable Robert Pattinson takes the lead roll in the movie, so there is a lot of potential. Capping off March is a pair of trope subersions with Netflix’s take on the fairy tale movie “Damsel” and the imaginary friends gone bad horror “Imaginary”. The latter of those is the first of two movies about imaginary friends this year.

Second Quarter.

The second quarter of 2024 features a run of big budget action based movies and a fair amount of horror along with a lot of franchise returns. In all (Of the movies listed), nine are either franchise sequels, prequels, spin-offs or reboots and only six are original films, four of which are horrors. Here’s the list:

April
NEW ADDITION: Monkey Man (Action) – April 5th
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire – April 12 (Action/Kaiju)
The First Omen – April 12 (Horror)
Abducting Abigail – April 19 (Horror)
NEW ADDITION: The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare – April 19th (Action)
Civil War – April 26 (Action/Thriller)

May
Horrorscope – May 10 (Horror)
If – May 17 (Horror
Furiosa – May 24, 2024
Garfield – May 24, 2024
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes – May 24, 2024

June
The Watchers – June 7, 2024 (Horror)
Ballerina – June 7
Bad Boys 4 – Jun 14
Inside Out 2 – June 14, 2024
A Quiet Place: Day One – June 28
Horizon: An American Saga (Pt 1) – June 28

April

Already controversial film “Civil War” hit’s theatres April 26th. Hard not to feel that movie is cynically cashing in on extreme tensions across the US in what is sure to be the most controversial election of all time. Fortunately even in the trailer they make it clear the film is pure fantasy since it has California teaming up with Texas! April also gives us a new entry in the “Monsterverse” franchise, “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” this time it’s a full on Godzilla and King Kong team up movie and it remains to be seen if they can actually make this work. Certainly the scene of Godzilla running in the trailer was… strange. After the success of the Japanese Godzilla Minus One in 2023, it’s uncertain whether the audiences are still on board with a heroic running Godzilla teaming up with a heroic Kong.

For horror we have an ill advised old franchise prequel “The First Omen“, which just to be a little more confusing is a prequel to the reboot Omen film from 2006 and not the one from 1976. yes they made a prequel to the film that has a 5.5 (62k votes) on imdb rather than the one with a 7.5 (129k votes). Go figure. Though a prequel to the ’76 film would basically just be Rosemary’s baby. All feels a bit pointless to me, but maybe it’ll be a surprise hit. April also sees the release of Universal monster thriller “Abducting Abigail“, a movie little seems to be known about, but seems to be about people kidnapping someone that is actually a monster.

UPDATE: Two new movies have been added to the slate in April that are worth mentioning, both are action films. First is “Monkey Man” from Universal, released April 5th and from the looks of the excellent trailer is a action film/superhero origin movie. That is followed by Guy Ritchies latest movie “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” with Henry Cavill. Ritchies output last year was nothing short of spectacular so I expect good things here as well. It seems April just got kicked up a notch!

May

May brings more questionable sequels with the first Mad Max film without Mad Max in: “Furiosa“. It’s also the first Max franchise movie to feature extremely heavy CGI and it was very noticeable in the trailer (And not in a good way). One sequel that actually looks decent though is “Kingdom of the Planet of the Ape“. Honestly it could go either way, but the trailer was promising. May also brings “The Strangers: Chapter 1“, a prequel to a home invasion film I wasn’t particularly impressed with. In my review of “The Strangers” the only positive I had about it was a surprisingly good performance by Liv Tyler. Another horror out in May is the deliberately misspelled “Horrorscope” about people having their fortunes read and then dying in related ways to that fortune. Straight forward gimmick; we’ll see how it lands.

May sees Garfield back on the big screen, now with Chris Pratt voicing the lasagna loving feline. The new film is called “The Garfield Movie” not to be confused with “Garfield: The Movie” from 2004. June also features a potentially big animated feature with “Inside Out 2“, though Disney doesn’t have the best track record with animation in recent years, so remains to be seen if it will be as much of a success as the original film. Disney can’t claim genre fatigue on their animation since everyone else seems to be doing well in that department. One movie that I think may be a hit this year (One of two for Ryan Reynolds), is “IF“, this years second movie about imaginary friends. These are good imaginary friends though, so don’t expect them to murder anyone. This is pure fantasy/comedy and the trailer looked great.

June

As we roll into the summer we get a pair of franchise action movies with the fourth installment of Michael Bay’s Bad Boys franchise “Bad Boys 4“. Not much is known about that one right now, so there is a chance it’ll get delayed. Before that though we get “Ballerina” a John Wick spin off set between the third and fourth movie of that franchise. The movie does include Keanu Reeves reprising his role, but the actual lead is Ana de Armas. It’s unknown how much of a role Wick will have in it. The third movie vying to be an early summer hit is Pixar’s “Inside Out 2“. While the original was a big hit, we all know how things are going for Disney right now and this isn’t Toy Story. It seems unlike “Anxiety” will be as popular a character as “Joy” was.

On the horror side of things June brings “The Watchers“, the directorial debut of Ishana Shyamalan, M. Night’s daughter. Hopefully she isn’t also obsessed with building movies around a single twist. The big horror movie of June though is the Quiet Place prequel “A Quiet Place: Day One“. If you read my review of the previous movie you’ll know I really liked the prequel section and was indifferent to the rest, so I’m actually on board with this one. Stepping away from horror, the final movie of note in June is Kevin Costner’s latest Western Epic “Horizon: An American Saga“. This is a self funded two part movie with the second due out in august. The total run time is apparently eleven hours, though it was originally meant to be four movies and seems to now be just two. The final length remains to be seen… But probably not by me!

End of Part One

Part two launches right into the summer holiday season and beyond. Right now its pretty barren terrain thanks to last years writers strike. They delayed a lot of films due out last year to make sure they had some content, but that could only stretch it so far. Also the end half of the year is where films are more likely to be delayed again, so it is a lot more speculative. Suffice to say part two will be shorter! Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope it’s given you a few films to look forward to.

2021 Year in Review – Part I : Fan Service

Posted on December 27, 2021August 24, 2023 by fenrisfil

2021 has been another difficult year both for people and for the movie industry. Studios weren’t really confident in their own movie’s ability to pull in an audience and many chose to send movies simultaneously to streaming. In this environment no one was really sure how to judge a movies success or failure. However by the end of the year we have had a clear indication thanks to Spider-Man that people will brave new Covid variants to see something that they are excited for. The trouble is there was a lot out this year that people clearly were not excited for. So what lessons have we learned this year? I think one of the big ones is the benefit of doing fan service in the right way. As we saw last year with “Sonic The Hedgehog” (2020), listening to fan criticism can result in a big win. This time around we have two big examples of doing things the right way.

Note, minor spoilers ahead for things you probably already know by now.

Getting the Band Back Together

The first is “Ghostbusters: Afterlife”, a cautious but heartfelt attempt to correct the many mistakes made by the 2016 franchise reboot and introduce a new generation to the concept of busting ghosts. The movie was made relatively cheaply which likely is why the setting is a small remote town instead of New York and the plot was kept simple, essentially being a rehash of the first movie. But what the movie did right was being a continuation of the classic movies, treating the original with respect (and a lot of love) and giving the surviving OG crew a meaningful reunion. But while doing that it also introduced new characters, provided diversity in the right way (naturally, balanced and without virtue signalling) and set up for the franchises future.

The movie wasn’t perfect, but it managed to leave fans of the original happy and win over new young fans. Despite this the damage done to the franchise by the previous movie meant the opening weekend wasn’t fantastic. However, the strong legs generated by word of mouth saw this film make a healthy profit in the end. One of the things to note here is the difference between how this movie referenced the originals and how the 2016 movie did that. here these elements are all worked directly into the plot and even the clunkiest of references (Stay Puffed) feels like it is actually part of the story. Meanwhile 2016 would pretty much stop the movie to show us an Easter egg and then throw it aside and move on.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

But following on from that success was the biggest winner of the year: “Spider-Man: No Way Home”. A movie that delivered on many levels, not just in providing fan service but also in providing a great deal of redemption for all three branches of this franchise (past and present). The biggest success though is the phenomenal box office. At the time of writing this, in the movies second week it has crossed the billion dollar mark at the box office. Something many people thought was impossible in a pandemic year and it did it in the winter, with a new variant out and with many theatres having to cope with additional restrictions (or complete lock downs). The movie also currently doesn’t have a China release making it’s global haul even more impressive.

But the danger with this movie is that Hollywood learns the wrong lessons. It wasn’t simply having cameos that made it a success but in the way they were used. The old favourites were treated respectfully and had personalities consistent with their past appearances and their on screen character development in those movies. But at the same time they did not overshadow the movies actual star. That’s not to say the movie did all the cameos perfectly. Doctor Strange definitely got the short straw here, but this wasn’t a Doctor Strange movie and perhaps his own sequel due out next year will provide him some redemption.

The Right Way and the Wrong Way

There is a right and a wrong way to do cameos. Both these movies make for an obvious comparison with Disney’s Star Wars sequels. Those movies deliberately kept Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia apart and minimised their roles so as to not get in the way of the new characters. The movie gave them characters inconsistent with their previous appearances, whereas No Way Home presented past characters consistent with their own character development and provided them further development and redemption for past mistakes. But most importantly it brought them all together and this was a meeting we never even knew we wanted.

Meanwhile Afterlife brought together all the original team, gave them off screen character progression consistent with their established personalities and gave the fans the moment they’ve been looking forward to for decades. Neither of these movies overshadowed the new characters with the old, indeed Afterlife kept the original crew out of the majority of the movie. See you can give the audience want they want, be respectful and consistent with the original and still have your focus on the future.

A good example of a movie that didn’t get the right way to do fan service from 2021 would be Halloween Kills. The movie featured almost a who’s who of characters from the first movie and made endless references to both that movie and Halloween 2, which the previous movie had retconned out of existence. The trouble is none of these characters or references were really meaningful, they were just there and most of them got in the way of the story they were trying to tell. This reminded me a bit of the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot that really felt like they wrote their movie and then went through it and dropped cameos and references in randomly. Both movies felt detached the originals and insincere.

Final Thoughts

Two final thoughts about fan service: It is important to know the difference between what the majority of fans want and what is just a handful of people on social media. When you are talking about respecting the previous instalments and/or source material it is likely the majority. When you are looking at “Shipping” (i.e. romantic relationships between two characters that aren’t currently romantically involved or even hinted at having that kind of connection) or other demands for radical change away from the source material it is probably just a handful of people being very vocal and should be ignored. The Sonic complaints for instant were all about making the character looking more like he did in the games instead of the creepy looking thing that was first put forward. It was safe to assume that the majority of fans agreed.

Finally, you can still create something new while respecting the past, just look at Cobra Kai, that series has been running for a few years now, is radically different to the Karate Kid movies and yet has respectful and consistent portrayals of both the characters and the past events of the movies. They introduce new characters and they let everything evolve on screen. The key thing here is “Show, don’t tell”. Even though a long time had past between seeing Daniel and Johnny in the movies and seeing them in the show their off screen progression was entirely logical and linear from where they left off, but once on screen they were able to take things in new directions. The same is true of Spiderman: No Way Home and to a lesser extent Ghostbusters: Afterlife, but where major events had happened (the team splitting up, it formed really the core of the entire story and really they did the best they could considering they had to explain why no one had been busting ghosts for 30+ years.]

So that’s the end of part one. I hope you enjoyed reading. See you with part two when I look at more of the years hits and misses.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

Posted on November 19, 2021November 21, 2021 by fenrisfil

Tonight I finally got to see the long anticipated “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” (2021). This is the official Ghostbusters 3, perhaps far too late to be a legitimate sequel, so instead it’s effectively a torch passing which is what they should have done last time out when they made that ill advised remake. Unfortunately a lot of critics that supported that movie have been extra salty about this new one, while the average movie goer probably just remember the last movie was terrible and as such are likely cautious about going to see this. My theatre was not even half full for the 8pm showing on it’s opening Thursday. But I’m not here to talk box office, I’m here to talk quality so lets dig in!

In with the New.

So the first thing to note here is there are basically four new Ghostbusters to presumably be the long term replacements for the original. It’s pretty clear that unlike the 2016 movie that basically just gender swapped the original team of four guys they set up to be as diverse as possible here. The team has two boys and two girls and includes one Black and one Asian character. Unfortunately those two seem to be modern Hollywood stereotypes because they are painfully similar to Michelle and Ned from the MCU Spider-Man films. They are more endearing than those characters at least and “Podcast”, the Asian boy is actually one of the highlights of the film.

Mckenna Grace and Finn Wolfhard play Egon Spenglers grandkids, Phoebe and Trevor and Pheobe is basically the movies protagonist. She is a young female Egon, but they tried to give her a bit of uniqueness by having her make really bad jokes, which does mostly work. McKenna is actually brilliant here but I think the film spends a bit too much time focused on her because the truth is Egon is not the Ghostbuster you want as your lead, but perhaps more importantly it leaves Trevor feeling undeveloped and as a knock on effect from that his love interest “Lucky” (Celeste O’Connor), gets the short straw on screen time and development, which is ironic consider she is basically the Black Ghostbuster.

Out with the Old.

The movie feels a lot smaller scale than the original Ghostbusters or even it’s sequel, but while this change in tone does make the movie feel more like a reboot than a sequel it does work for the movie itself. This is ultimately a more emotional movie and isn’t really about the ghost story but about the characters and the legacy of the original. As such the plot is very thin on the ground and basically “Gozer came back somehow”, the movie also feels a bit too long if you watch it right after the original movies (as I did) and slows down a lot in the middle. The first very long act of the movie basically involves the kids discovering their grandfathers legacy. The second act is basically where the plot resides along with a bit of ghost action. There’s a completely pointless appearance by Ivo Shandor (architect of the building from the first film), which I would say was a spoiler except he does literally nothing. This leads us to our big finale and this is where the movie finally reaches it’s potential.

I don’t want to drop too much about the final act and just how the original team become involved but suffice to say I found the ending very satisfactory and emotional. The original team are respected and every character basically gets their moment. My only real criticism is this act is by far the shortest, but what it lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality.

A love letter to the original.

There are many call backs to the original movie, but unlike when these appeared in the 2016 disaster, this time around they fit smoothly into the story, don’t mess with the pacing and each one landed well with me and everyone else in the theatre. When the original crew appear they are all respected and despite their short time on the screen every one of them gets some character development and at least a good line or reference. It is safe to say what their appearances lack in quantity they make up for in quality. They also get to be the focus of the mid/post credits scenes that you really have to stay for. It’s worth noting that Ernie Hudson has somehow managed to avoid aging. The guy almost looks like he did in Ghostbusters 2. Speaking of the original sequel, it’s interesting to note that the movie makes no references (that I noticed) to that movie specifically, which is a shame but I guess it’s understandable given a lot of people seem to dislike that movie.

The biggest surprise of the movie is just how much character development Egon gets, despite both the actor and the character being dead. This really is his story and the movie is focused on his legacy both from his life’s work and his family. It is ultimately a very moving tribute to a well loved character and I wouldn’t be surprised if a few tears are shed by the end. Ultimately this movie while not the near perfection of the original, achieved everything the 2016 movie failed at. It is a very respectful and entertaining return for the franchise.