Thank you, Ghost Corps / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, for a copy of Ghostbusters: Afterlife on Blu-ray for me to review. An unexpected, but welcome addition to my collection.
This review might be very late, but as they say in Ghostbusters 2 when watching the Titanic arrive: “Better late than never.”
I’m going to split this into several sections: The Film, the Features, Video, Audio, and an Overall score.
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Ghostbusters: Afterlife – Film Review: A+
Nostalgia is defined as “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.” A lot of people have said that Ghostbusters: Afterlife has too much nostalgia. That it has too much that references the original films. These folks, I feel, had applied their own expectations onto the film, and blamed the film when it didn’t meet those expectations. I will explain.
When people who believed this film had too much nostalgia went to see the movie, they expected that the movie would completely forget the past and be something completely new. The inclusion of the ghost trap, the proton packs, and the Ecto-1 might have been too much for them. Not to mention the Terror Dogs and Gozer. Nevermind that the rest of the movie is a personal family drama, with characters coming to terms with who they are, and who they were to their late grandfather. They wanted something entirely new in a film that is chapter 3 of a book that started a long time ago. And because the expectation of a 100% new story wasn’t met (to them), they said it was too much nostalgia. I suggest that they should have done what I’ve now done a ton of times: let the movie be what it is, and take them for a ride.
Here’s a bit of why it’s not what they said. When you are reading a book, and you get to chapter 3, you don’t suddenly get to play by all new rules. If Gozer’s route into our dimension requires a Gatekeeper and a Keymaster in chapter one, and that they become terror dogs, and chapter three seeks to bring Gozer back again for another battle, then the rituals required to bring Gozer into our dimension must be the same. That’s not a convenient plot device or a mere copy of the original film, it’s part of the lore of Ghostbusters.
The third chapter can also have references back to the first chapter, like a twinkie, a crunch bar, etc. without it being considered nostalgia. When Luke Skywalker visits Yoda in Return of the Jedi, is that nostalgia for The Empire Strikes Back? When he speaks to Obi-Wan Kenobi in the same film, is that nostalgia for A New Hope? I mean, they even reference a conversation at Luke and Obi-Wan had in A New Hope. Nostalgia right? Not really, no. When audiences watch the movies as a trilogy, later on, they look at it as one larger story. The same is true here. When my daughter eventually watches the Ghostbusters movies, she’ll see Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters 2, and then Ghostbusters: Afterlife and whatever FIREHOUSE turns out to be called after that. For her, the experience will be that of simply the next movie in the adventure. For her, the word nostalgia may not even enter her thoughts about the movie.
With that out of the way, let’s talk about the movie. As I said before, I’ve watched the movie a lot of times. I initially rented my own theatre to watch the movie. The pandemic was, and is still, raging, and I really wanted to see this movie without getting spoiled on it. It cost me a couple hundred dollars or so, but it was worth it, if only to avoid spoilers. I would have preferred to watch it at home, but that’s okay.
Currently my favorite characters in the film are Mr. Grooberson, Phoebe, Podcast, Trevor, Lucky, and Callie. Basically, all the new cast members.
Grooberson is this movie’s Venkman type, but more of the anti-Venkman. His sense of humor would fit right in with the original guys in the first two films, but doesn’t have the same edge that Venkman’s humor had in the 1980s. I really hope he’s back in FIREHOUSE, and I’d love to see him get to use a Proton Pack. (Who says that we have to limit the team to four members? If it comes back as an active business, they could need to have additional teams or teammates.)
Phoebe is a great character, with mannerisms similar to Egon Spengler, and it was fun watching her go from just believing in science to witnessing ghosts and other spirits and accepting it as fact, based on the empirical evidence that was right in front of her.
Podcast is so fun, and I would love to know who his family is, and hear some episodes of his podcast.
Trevor was given a haircut similar to that of a young Harold Ramis for the film. Clever. His character feels like he might have been one of the cool kids in school back in Chicago, if not just had an easier time fitting in. However, there are some things about his character that suggest otherwise, that perhaps he may have also been a bit of an outsider. He has some self-confidence when they first get to Summerville and quickly gets a job and the attention of the young woman who was working at the drive-in cafe he applied to.
Lucky was written well as the small-town girl. I appreciated how she was very self-aware, a bit wise beyond her years, and had a sense of humor where she’s making herself laugh, and eventually she might let you in on the joke. Maybe. I have spent a lot of time in a small town similar to that. More so when I was a kid (it was smaller than Summerville, honestly), and I have family members that have a similar sensibility.
Callie was on her own journey in this film. She has a lot to learn and goes on an emotional pathway of growth and discovery.
Within this movie are several stories of growth. All of the primary characters in the movie are different at the end of the film than they were at the beginning of the movie. And that includes some of the supporting characters that show up toward the end of the movie. With the leads of the film, each time you watch it, you can watch the movie from a different character’s perspective, and get a different experience while watching the movie. The same was true of the original two films as well.
The story is realistic and terrifying and fun. It’s like The Goonies meets Ghostbusters.
I could seriously go on for thousands of words on the film, talking about almost every aspect of the movie, but I’ll leave it at this: if you haven’t seen it yet, watch it. The directing, the cinematography, the writing, the effects, it’s all fantastic, and why I give this movie an A+.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife Blu-ray Bonus Features: A
I have to give this an A rather than an A+. It has fun bonus features taking us behind the scenes on the production of the film. That said, there is a lot of content that would have been amazing to see as part of this. Here’s where my own expectation is getting in the way of what we actually got, but I’m only marking it down a half a grade because of this from A+ to A. I would have loved an audio commentary track on this film. Something for a future release, I’m guessing. That said, I also loved the features that brought back the original Ghostbusters. Those were a blast.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife Blu-ray Video Quality: A
The picture quality of the film is incredible on the Blu-ray. Because there are now Ultra HD discs released, by default, it would be hard to give this an A+ when compared with that version (though that could happen).
Ghostbusters: Afterlife Blu-ray Sound Quality: A+
The sound is amazing on this film. The music, the sound effects, all come through clearly, with a good mix.
Overall Ghostbusters: Afterlife Blu-ray Score: A+
All-in-all, this is a fantastic film, and if you love Ghostbusters, this belongs in your collection right next to Ghostbusters 2. This set also came with the film on DVD and a digital copy you can add to your Movies Anywhere collection.
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