Ghostbusters may be in purgatory, but it’s not in the afterlife quite yet. Has a franchise ever experienced such an identity crisis? The comedy-horror classic from 1984 and its follow-up, the outrageous gender-flipped reboot that had its moments but ultimately failed, and, as if it had never occurred, the surprisingly touching sequel to the originals from 2021, Afterlife, introduced a charming new breed of ‘busters. Frozen Empire is now trying to test if any of the slime sticks by hurling everything against the wall. Parts of it work, but a lot of it just falls apart. Although there are some amusing ghouls, the true terror this time appears to be off screen. Ghostbusters is trembling under the weight of its own history and is attempting to play it safe.
Afterlife kicked off the new era with a bang: Carrie Coon, who played the late Egon Spengler’s daughter Callie, Mckenna Grace, who played his granddaughter Phoebe, Finn Wolfhard, who played her brother Trevor, and Paul Rudd, who played the clueless teacher Gary Grooberson, made up a new and refreshing team. Jason Reitman added some nostalgic touches to an obviously personal story that revolved around the passing of Harold Ramis, who was also, on screen, Egon).
The sequel begins promisingly, with a spooky prologue set in 1904 New York and introducing the deadly “Death Chill” (definitely too cold to contain, but not too hot to handle). In the present, the Spengler-Groobersons are seen flying around Manhattan in their jumpsuits, chased by the Ecto-1’s shrieking siren, as they pursue the Hell’s Kitchen Sewer Dragon, a formidable spectre. Here, director Gil Kenan, who co-wrote Frozen Empire and Afterlife with Reitman, throws up some zippy flair. It’s encouraging to see 15-year-old Phoebe taking the lead in the gunner seat, creating havoc throughout the city with her proton blasts as her mother uses a drone trap to capture the translucent horror. What amazing work—and what a great group! However, it soon becomes clear that there isn’t really anything for them to do behind the misadventures. There’s nowhere substantial for the Ecto-1 to travel. There are no more roads for this old jalopy.
Instead of making people happy, the constant fan service makes them sigh.
The OGs were only really brought in at the very end to wrap up Egon’s story, and even then, they were charming and felt like they had earned their participation. Afterlife mostly let the new gang hold their own. However, the Spengler family is given less screen time in favor of giving the older characters—who don’t have any emotional resonance this time—more time to appear in the movie just for kicks. Although he enjoys bustin’ chops, Bill Murray never looked to be more in control of his performance than in this scene. He sleepwalked through a number of terribly disposable lines that, if you close your eyes, would sound like they belong in the general region of Venkman. Not to mention the numerous appearances, including Slimer’s cameo for no apparent reason and the reappearance of William Atherton’s Walter Peck, who was a punchable douchebag in the first movie but is now just a blank evil.as well as appearances by, well, anybody. Sighs rather than grins are produced by the fan service throughout, and there is simply insufficient belief in everything that Afterlife has to offer. It’s packed full. It’s Dominion from Jurassic Park. It’s called Skywalker: The Rise. It’s unfortunate.
The hearts of Reitman and Kenan are beating here, somewhere, and they are in the proper place. Mckenna Grace does a good job of portraying Phoebe’s frustration that Peck’s bureaucracy keeps her out of the ghostbusting, but the writing doesn’t do her any favors. While this one explores the family’s growing pains, it does so with the broadest of strokes, buried under an unwieldy plot, crushed under the film’s obsession with its legacy. Afterlife presented a well-developed family drama that grounded the whole thing, the ghostly goings-on playing second fiddle to a portrayal of sadness and love. It has had its life stifled.
Not that it’s not entertaining; James Acaster’s sardonic scientist Pinfield works well working in a lab full of caught spirits, and some of the phantasms, like a bothersome possessor a la poltergeist, are hilarious. A mischievous delight, the masochistic Mini-Pufts gleefully burn each other and churn themselves to death. However, window decorating alone is insufficient. The picture, a deformed hybrid, wastes its potential because its makers were too careful to go past the past. They became stuck after crossing the creeks.