 Good news! Ghostbusters Afterlife is far better than that 2016 piece of crap, but it's no Ghostbusters 3. We already had that. It was a video game, and it was better than this film. Let's begin. If anyone can direct a great Ghostbusters movie, it's Ivan Reitman, son. Jason Reitman. That's not correct. No, Ivan just did the first two with the Staypuff Marshmallow Man and the Statue of Liberty. One of them people really look up to with high regard, and the other is Ghostbusters 2, which I like. My last video, as a matter of fact, defends Ghostbusters 2 and how it's a great movie still. So feel free to subscribe and check that out. I have a lot of movie content here. Let's talk about Afterlife though and what it gets right. For starters, it appears to have a script and was competently directed. There's no fart or queef jokes to be found, which is nice. It's a nice change of pace from 2016. The visuals are nice. All the Ghostbuster accoutrements you expect are here. The Ecto 1, the Proton Pack, the Traps. They're very beautiful to look at. The nostalgia is overwhelming. It sounds and looks crisp. That's still visuals. I'm still on the visuals. Here's the deal. This is a really tough one to review. What we have here is a movie that knows what fans want, but doesn't have the competency to give it to us. Either Jason Reitman or the other screenwriters, which include Dan Ackroyd, who did the first two movies along with Harold Raines, who's not alive anymore, so couldn't chip in. They know what makes the first two movies work and they just, I guess, don't have it in them to make another movie in that style. Where the humor is front and center, where it has dramatic elements and some scary stuff going on, but it's all kind of an afterthought or it's just paired nicely with the humor. You never really take it too seriously, even when the stakes are serious. It's really hard to explain what makes Ghostbusters 1 and 2 work so well. They're often considered lightning in a bottle with many dismissing the second one as losing some of the magic. And when you have films like that, there's no easy recipe. That's why they're lightning in a bottle. That's why they're tough to capture. And so this movie decides we're not even going to try that. We're going to go a totally different route. It's going to be dramatic. It's going to be serious. It's going to be sad. But really, we're taking the series in a very different direction. And that's why this movie's not called Ghostbusters 3. It's called Ghostbusters Afterlife. And really, I believe it's kind of a sequel to Ghostbusters 1. I apologize if I'm wrong. I only saw this one time, but I don't think there was even a mention of Ghostbusters 2. Not that I really noticed at least, clearly. It's just different. And I guess maybe that's not what I was looking for with Ghostbusters. It's not the route I would have taken. So what we have here is a movie that focuses on Egon Spangler's kids, grandkids as well. Isn't this getting fun? Are we sick of this yet or not? Can we still do this more? Where the old nostalgic film, the parents have children now or grandchildren who take up the mantle. We've seen this in so many movies. Scream is doing it. I guess they're not their kids, but they're teenagers. They're having the old ones. They're carting their asses back out for a fifth or sixth film to just kind of tip the hat, wink to the audience, and then they're either killed off or they just go about their way. McKenna Grace is the main character here. She plays Phoebe. She's 12 years old. She's a genius like her grandfather, Egon Spangler. And as this movie progresses very slowly, Phoebe's introduced to the Ghostbusters and who they were and what they accomplished because apparently they're not teaching this in history class. Her mother Callie recently found out that Egon Spangler has died and they have inherited his farm. He's a dirt farmer. That's what they know him as out in the middle of nowhere. Summerville is the name of the town. It's a shithole. And they're all gonna stay there now because they're broke. They weren't good with money like their father. Finn Wolfhard plays Trevor. I really like him in Stranger Things. Here? Not so much. Not so much. It's not because he's bad by any means. His acting's fine. The stuff he's involved in isn't interesting and it's slow moving and it really goes nowhere. And then of course there's People Magazine's Sexiest Man of the Year, Paul Rudd. It's like People Magazine just has the Avengers list in front of them and they're like, oh we already did Chris Pratt. We already did Chris Hemsworth. Who's next on here? Robert Downey? We did him a couple times I think. Oh here we go. Paul Rudd. He's the next one. Paul Rudd is great. He's ended a decent amount yet he doesn't do a whole lot with the time he's given. This is just a weird movie. It does every single thing a soft reboot does. It talks about the past movies. It has a lot of the same elements from those films. It brings back old favorites. There's tons of Easter eggs and references to the popular film of the past. I'm just getting a little sick of it. To Jason Reitman's credit there is a good amount of heart and feels in this film but it's almost cheating. It's like the Fast and the Furious movie 37 or whatever when Paul Walker died and everybody went to the film because they wanted to cry about his death. That's what we have here. It's not like we're sad because the character Egon Spangler is gone. It's because Harold Ramis is gone. That's where the emotions coming from. It's just kind of cheating is all I'm saying. It's kind of cheating. When I found out they were doing a kid's Ghostbusters I was thinking alright maybe this will have that campy fun of the Goonies. Maybe it'll have that sandlot feel to it. No not really because the movie is kind of dramatic throughout. It is slowly paced. I mean it's not uninteresting but I was definitely waiting for something to wow me or to make me laugh really hard or to have those quips and good jabs that the old movies did. No not at all. This has modern comedy so people just kind of say literally all the time. I counted four of them. How are you saying literally still in films in 2021? This is ridiculous and then to do it that many times have a good script. Get that tightened up and look at the editing. What is happening Hollywood? I know these actors all talk like dipshits off camera. Don't bring it into the movie. It's freaking movie. I wanted to love it. I wanted to like it a lot. Instead I'm kind of in this just it's got some really good stuff in it but then it's got some really bad stuff in it and I don't like the overall feel of it. I don't like the route they went. That's not to say it's a bad movie but it's not Ghostbusters and the way I know them. They're going for a different market. They're going a different angle. It's one of those things where they're like hey we're gonna forge our own path with new characters but also we're gonna ram in everything from the past movies including the major plot points. If you're going to this movie simply for the ghostbusting aspect you might be a little disappointed in that too. There's not a lot of busting going on. We do get cute staypuff marshmallow babies though. That was in the commercial and it happens at Walmart. Everyone's favorite store Walmart. The other scene that I really did like is when they're finally cruising around in the Ecto One trying to take down a new type of slimer ghost called a muncher. They are just wrecking this little town trying to capture the thing. I was on the edge of my seat watching excited happy that something was finally happening in this film probably an hour into the movie. It's not like there's a lot of ghostbusting in the first two films but we have these awesome actors that are just playing off each other and having a great time and that's what's missing here. The kids don't really have a collective ghostbusters team or anything. It's not like a goonie squad where they're uncovering treasures and working together. Oftentimes there's just two or three characters trying to figure out what this ghostbusters tech is and how to use it and we're just waiting for them to catch up with everything we know already and that doesn't make for the most interesting movie to watch. I guess to summarize I'm personally disappointed with this. I didn't have a lot of expectations going in and it kind of underwhelmed me. You might be one that does love it and that's fine. I'm not gonna shit on your opinion. My wife actually really liked it. She thought it was a beautifully crafted film. My kids were kind of bored. They were looking for the fun hijinks of the first two and that's not what this was at all. So yeah let me know in the comments which you thought of Ghostbusters Afterlife. It's not Ghostbusters 3. That's unfair to say. It didn't earn that title at all. And I'm gonna jump into some spoilers for a little bit. I don't have much to say. This is the spoilers section. I'm only gonna talk for a few minutes on it because there's really only one major thing to discuss and that's the final act. The ghost Egon Spangler aka Harry Potter's parents. The battle scene where Phoebe's got the gun trying to take down Gozer who of course is back. Gotta bring back Gozer for those member berries and Egon grabs the gun. It was very cool. It was a special moment. But again is it emotional and touching because the movie did such a good job with Egon or is it because Harold Ramis is dead? It's absolutely the second thing. The first two movies were super light. They were cracking jokes at Gozer. They were having fun with it. I didn't look at any of these people as like mentors and serious individuals that I had to be sad about when they were gone. Before that happens the movie leads us into the most predictable scene that's gonna play out. I called it 10 minutes before it happened. You probably could have called it before the movie and started. But the other original Ghostbusters show up to help save the day and stop Gozer. It's a really awkward shot. There's a couple scenes in this film where I thought okay Reitman's getting it right. We're gonna have fun now. We're gonna kick things up. The first is when the ghosts all start to rise up. Things are shaking. The town's going crazy. And I was just waiting for that iconic score to kick in. Ghostbusters knock me out of my seat. The kids we're gonna get on the proton packs. We're gonna start taking down ghosts. No! It never comes until the final shot of the film and it's really weird. But we'll get back to that in a second. Anyway, the three Ghostbusters come out. This is the second thing that they really dropped the ball on. The mother and the child are on the ground and Gozer's about to take them down. That we're just gonna hear the and the blaster hits Gozer. And then a second one. Then a third one. And then we have this iconic pan up from the gun to Bill Murray or Dan Ackroyd. But no. Instead the guys just start talking to Gozer who looks over and when we finally see them they're just standing there. Like really uncomfortably close together next to the Ecto-1 off-frame. Like not put in the center. Not heroic. Not iconic. It's just a bizarre shot in front of a green screen that doesn't have any emotional weight to it. You could have done this so much better. Ernie Hudson by the way still looks like he's in his late 40s. Bravo the guys. Man that guy's aging like a fine wine. The other two not so much. They look like they were just taken out of the retirement home and they threw them in their outfits and they're like all right we're filming this now. Bill Murray pretend like you give a shit about Ghostbusters you son of a bitch. We should have had like five of these years ago but you kept holding out. They do get to crack some jokes but we're so far in the game at this point that none of them really land for me. The tone is so off from those originals that whenever the jokes are coming out it just doesn't feel natural. I thought having Egon as a ghost and communicating with this family was really nice though. That was a great idea. It played out way too long though. Took a very long time to get where we needed to be. And the deep fake or CG or whatever the hell they did for him to be a ghost looked really nice. It was very touching which again is not Ghostbusters. Let me get to the final shot of the movie that's just way off from anything else. We get a bird's eye view kind of looking down at the city. The Ghostbusters old logo comes up followed by that iconic song by Ray Parker Jr. I was expecting something to happen. Nothing did. The audience was just left kind of thinking whaaat? I get that you were trying to do a callback again to the first movie. Out of place. Didn't work. We do get a nice end credit scene where Bill Murray and Sigourney Weaver are hanging out. It looks like they're married or they're at least together which is nice and they're doing the old card game from the first movie and he's getting them right but he's still getting zapped. It's a you know another nice fun callback and as this scene was playing out I'm just sitting here kind of pissed thinking why didn't we just do this? We could have just done another Ghostbusters with the guys that are left. Egon could have still been a ghost and he could have just been communicating with the original Ghostbusters. We didn't have to have all this bullshit with the farm and the kids. It could have got into the action way quicker. Then we wouldn't have had to make Egon look like this crazy washed out has been who turned his back on his friends and family. We wouldn't have had to have Ray working back at his occult shop alone and miserable. I'm so sick of deconstructing all these 80s and 90s characters. Not everything has to be Luke Skywalker on a rock dying alone, right? I mean what's next? We're gonna have Doc from Back to the Future just super pissed and angry. He's got a scar down his eye. He's like war torn and hates science and he hates the future and his family left him. I mean no! No! Stop it! We could have had a simple straightforward Ghostbusters movies with the old characters. They're not superheroes. That's the fun part about Ghostbusters is they're out of shape guys just trying to get a paycheck and maybe do some good for the city. Fuck! This movie! I'm more mad now than when I started this thing. I'm gonna do a ranking of the four coming up. It's gonna be a really exciting ranking. You'll know absolutely what the order is gonna be but you know whatever we'll do it anyway. We'll talk a little bit more about Ghostbusters and yeah there you have it. All right talk to you soon.