Ghostbusters Afterlife

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021): ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This one took long enough to hit reasonable rental prices that we’d lost track of what the reviews said, so we weren’t sure what to expect, and after other recent attempts to resurrect old franchises that didn’t work out so well, weren’t terribly optimistic. Happily, we enjoyed this more than we expected to. It was amusing, the kids weren’t annoying, the effects nicely called back to the originals, and we appreciated that the plot picked up on a lot of the original film (for us, it wasn’t “too much fan service”, it was continuing the story). Glad we finally got around to giving it a shot.

(That said, I will continue to be annoyed that the whiny, racist, sexist, childish backlash against the 2016 film means we don’t get to continue that storyline. That I enjoyed this one and am now looking forward to the next one doesn’t mean I wouldn’t happily swap them out for a timeline where the 2016 film got continued instead.)

First things first: I really enjoyed the recent Ghostbusters reboot, am disappointed that so many people attacked it and its stars so viciously, and am disappointed that rather than continuing that story, it’s apparently being ignored in favor of continuing the original story. Even some of the statements from the upcoming film’s creators were quite questionable, even if they were quickly walked back afterwards. So when the first trailer dropped today, I went into it with a pretty healthy dose of skepticism.

That said — it’s a good trailer, and while all of the above comments absolutely still apply, I’m now a lot less skeptical than I have been. While I’d still love to see a continuation of the reboot continuity, this new film picking up the original continuity does look promising.

Plus, it was fun watching this for the first time with Prairie, because I didn’t clue her in to what we were watching, and she didn’t realize what it was for until the reveal about halfway through (right at the “Whoa…killer replica!” line). Her final reaction was much the same as mine — still bummed that the reboot is being ignored, but also looking forward to the new film.