The original Ghostbusters disbanded five years after defeating Vigo the Carpathian.
Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) is a bookstore owner, Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) is a university professor, and Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) is a successful businessman. The last of the bunch is Egon (Harold Ramis), who moves to a farm in Summerville, Oklahoma, along with all their gear.
Egon believes that their old enemy, Gozer the Gozerian (Olivia Wilde), will return to resume destroying the world. The three didn't believe him, permanently straining their friendships.
Fast forward to 2021.
Egon died of a heart attack, and his death forced his estranged and impoverished daughter, Callie (Carrie Coon), to move to his farm along with her two children: Phoebe (Mckenna Grace), a science whiz, and Trevor (Finn Wolfhard), a moody teenager infatuated with her workmate Lucky (Celeste O'Connor).
Carrie enrolled her daughter in a summer class where she made new friends like Podcast (Logan Kim) and Mr. Grooberson (Paul Rudd). Both guys are Ghostbusters fans. So when they found out that Phoebe was Egon's granddaughter, they educated her on his life and accomplishments.
Soon enough, Phoebe, Podcast, Lucky, and Trevor inadvertently discovered a Gozerian temple within the mine near their house. Inside it is none other than the evil and powerful Gozer, ready to break free at any time. It is now up to them to keep the villain at bay, especially now that the Ghostbusters are gone.
I'm always curious about what "Ghostbusters 3" would look like if screenwriters Dan Aykroyd and Tom Davis went ahead with their planned story.
In a leaked script for "Ghostbusters 3: Hellbent," the Ghostbusters corporation is successful and growing and a new team will lead the operation. The business now has dozens of employees and a platoon of Ecotomobiles made from converted trucks and ambulances. The four Ghostbusters will then fight evil versions of themselves in a hellish Manhattan called Manhellttan. It sounds like the perfect Ghostbusters film. It's weird, unique, scary, and fun.
Unfortunately, it never materialized. Bill Murray is not onboard with the sequel since the script was not good enough for him. After a lot of writing and rewriting, the idea and hype died down. But in 2016, Paul Feig directed a reboot of the franchise. The original Ghostbusters crew praised the concept, however critics and fans were divided on the all-female cast and the intent of the film. It revived old talks about a sequel, though, which turned out to be "Ghostbusters: Afterlife."
"Ghostbusters: Afterlife," which is strangely not titled "Ghostbusters 3," is a continuation of the original Ghostbusters story. Perhaps the title change is a way of saying that it wants to differentiate itself from the first two films. This sequel feels very personal and disparate from its predecessors in terms of tone and story. For the first time, there are no environmentalists and city mayors attempting to shut down the ghost-extermination business. There are no dilemmas involving conniving working-class villains trying to wreak havoc in the city that mocked them. There's no hard-hitting commentary on capitalism; it's now just a story about family love and children growing up and accepting who they are.
Obviously, Dan Aykroyd did not write the script for this film. The comedian is known for his out-of-the-box and fresh ideas, and there's nothing about this story that feels brand new. It falls flat without the magic touch of Aykroyd and Harold Ramis (RIP). "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" is supposedly an expansive story, a passing of the torch as it were. But it turned into a two-hour movie full of "Ghostbusters" references and homages. Worse of all, these Easter Eggs aren't even relevant to the story; they're just there to keep fans happy. It didn't even try to pitch in any ideas that would contribute to the overall narrative.
At the center of it all is Mckenna Grace, who plays, yet again, a charming and smart girl. The whole movie basically rests on her ability to provide a technical overview of all the ghosts and gadgets presented in the story. But despite the fact that she excelled in her role as the film's main protagonist, everyone around her feels like ghosts floating around aimlessly. Take, for example, Finn Wolfhard’s Trevor, whose character arc becomes so irrelevant in the end that it's difficult to determine what's the value of his existence in the first place. Paul Rudd and Carrie Coon are merely placeholders; they exist to remind viewers once in a while that this is essentially "Ghostbusters 3" and not some generic action-comedy film.
All in all, the callbacks are appreciated and it got some entertaining sequences. However, this film isn't particularly memorable compared to the first two Ghostbusters films. Maybe the title "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" is true after all. Maybe the franchise is dead, and the only story that they can come up with is nothing but a collection of haunting memories from its predecessors.
2/5
