Ghostbuster: Afterlife. (12A.)
Directed by Jason Reitman.
Starring Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Logan Kim and Celeste O' Connor. In cinemas. 125 mins.
Afterlife could have been the post colon title to every woe begotten Ghostbusters project since the beloved original. Closing my review of the lady Ghostbusters film of 2016 I suggested that maybe Ghostbusters only really had enough going for it to fuel a single outing: beyond the logo, the kit and the song, whattaya got? Like GB2 and Ladybusters, all Afterlife has to offer is nostalgia and a rehash of the first film. It does though definitely have life in it.
Afterlife is co-written and directed by the son of the original's director and the way they work through the Reitman family dynamic is why this is such a clever and satisfying sequel. Father Ivan made his name directing and/ or producing raucous comedies (Animal House/ Stripes/ Meatballs) featuring star comics. Son Jason has produced a series of character-based comedy/ dramas such as Juno, Up In The Air and Tully with big-name actors and, to a degree, that's the sensibility he brings to this. There are wisecracks, but in character.
Their solution to the problem of making an interesting GB film nearly four decades later is twofold and unexpected: kids and Oklahoma. A single mother (Coon) and her two children (Wolfhard and Mckenna) are forced to move to a big spooky house in the middle of nowhere. Here they investigate spooky activity and uncover their connection to the Ghostbusters, an 80s phenomenon now largely forgotten.
James Bond showed adding children to the formula is never a good idea, but here they really are our future. Coon and Rudd are tremendous fun in the grown-up roles but the film belongs to Mckenna as Phoebe, the 12-year-old nerdy socially awkward daughter who embodies the spirit of Harold Ramis. The other kids are great, but she is scarily accomplished. But having entrusted the film to youth, they haven't made a children's film. The look is pure 80's Spielberg and the effects are in the manner of the original; much more accomplished but nothing worth shelling out on Imax for. This is primarily for the grown ups, a film about reconciling past glories to present disappointment and trying to reach an accommodation between them.
The nostalgia is very potent in Afterlife. The 80s are presented as a better, almost mythical age, a time of lost values. Which is a Stalinist rewriting of history: in cinema and in life the eighties was when everything went wrong, when humanity grabbed the controls and set its course straight down the toilet. This is why we now live in an age of climate crisis and director's cuts of Rocky IV.
Directed by Jason Reitman.
Starring Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Logan Kim and Celeste O' Connor. In cinemas. 125 mins.
Afterlife could have been the post colon title to every woe begotten Ghostbusters project since the beloved original. Closing my review of the lady Ghostbusters film of 2016 I suggested that maybe Ghostbusters only really had enough going for it to fuel a single outing: beyond the logo, the kit and the song, whattaya got? Like GB2 and Ladybusters, all Afterlife has to offer is nostalgia and a rehash of the first film. It does though definitely have life in it.
Afterlife is co-written and directed by the son of the original's director and the way they work through the Reitman family dynamic is why this is such a clever and satisfying sequel. Father Ivan made his name directing and/ or producing raucous comedies (Animal House/ Stripes/ Meatballs) featuring star comics. Son Jason has produced a series of character-based comedy/ dramas such as Juno, Up In The Air and Tully with big-name actors and, to a degree, that's the sensibility he brings to this. There are wisecracks, but in character.
Their solution to the problem of making an interesting GB film nearly four decades later is twofold and unexpected: kids and Oklahoma. A single mother (Coon) and her two children (Wolfhard and Mckenna) are forced to move to a big spooky house in the middle of nowhere. Here they investigate spooky activity and uncover their connection to the Ghostbusters, an 80s phenomenon now largely forgotten.
James Bond showed adding children to the formula is never a good idea, but here they really are our future. Coon and Rudd are tremendous fun in the grown-up roles but the film belongs to Mckenna as Phoebe, the 12-year-old nerdy socially awkward daughter who embodies the spirit of Harold Ramis. The other kids are great, but she is scarily accomplished. But having entrusted the film to youth, they haven't made a children's film. The look is pure 80's Spielberg and the effects are in the manner of the original; much more accomplished but nothing worth shelling out on Imax for. This is primarily for the grown ups, a film about reconciling past glories to present disappointment and trying to reach an accommodation between them.
The nostalgia is very potent in Afterlife. The 80s are presented as a better, almost mythical age, a time of lost values. Which is a Stalinist rewriting of history: in cinema and in life the eighties was when everything went wrong, when humanity grabbed the controls and set its course straight down the toilet. This is why we now live in an age of climate crisis and director's cuts of Rocky IV.
