"This is weird."
I wish. Sigh.
You know, Mythology has been around for millennia and for good reason, because certain stories (not to get all Campbell on your asses but just for a moment) have this incredible metaphorical weight that is carried down through different cultures and yet at the heart of it all these stories with heroes and villains and conflicts and dangers and temptations a-plenty carry power over time. We have archetypes for good reason because they're reliable and they work. Of course few pieces of pop culture really took hold of Campbell and his 1000 hero faces material more (forgive this pun swear not intended) forcefully than George Lucas with Star Wars, and for better or worse (not mostly better) he continued on with that in the prequels.
Then he left and we got Force Awakens, Last Jedi and that other movie that I can't remember and it doesn't exist so that's cool ok. What that movie and Abrams and all those Indie Darlings at Disney and Lucasfilm did was actually not too bad of an idea for that story, to continue another generation ahead with some new characters and the acknowledged-aged return of others, as the hero Mythology and the ideas of lineage and what is the past and breaking it or holding on to it or finding out that there were some ... flaws that were abound but it wasn't without some real heart and so on, all of this got explored to pretty interesting degrees by the filmmakers (up till the point when they... didnt), and it worked in the context of this entire large space-set world. In short, The Force Awakens was good and the idea to do what it did was fine, all New Hope Redone things considered.... what it was horrible for though was the industry looking to extend shit by LEGACY degrees, and it's here that we go on to this movie, Ghostbusters Afterlife (and I'm only surprised they resisted the urge to name it The Trap Awakens or some shit... that's actually a bit dirtier than I intended, but let's move on).
I'm not inherently opposed to the idea that we are following the kid/grandkids of one of the characters of Ghostbusters 84 and 89 (not that this wants to acknowledge the latter much, but I'll come back to that), and even that there's this tortured backstory involving one of the characters breaking off from the group like Egon and going Strange Old Hermit on these characters and causing fractions - isn't even a bad or worthless or unworkable idea.
I even flashed to of all the things Casper (yes the 1995 movie look it up, you goons) as that managed to be a decent kids movie with a family coming to an old run down house and discovering things and getting into adventures. And referencing the first one or two movies I'm sure comes with the territory. And, to give some praise here, McKenna Grace, Carrie Coon, to an extend Stranger Things are inhabiting these roles believably and bringing some pathos when they can, not to mention Paul Rudd as a likeable comic presence (though not incessantly so, we get that with "Podcast" Grr argh).
But the two largest issues here are that the movie takes hits off the reference pipe like Nicolas Cage in Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans (and nothing lucky about this shit pipe), and it mistakes using the supernatural elements from the first film as if it's an unbreakable code.
You remember Ivo Shandor? He's here... literally! (But what, no Tobin if Tobin's Spirit Guide? Harumph)
You remember Stay Puft Marshmallows, which was all part of a (extremely funny) gag with Ray trying to think of the thing to *him* that couldn't possibly be a Destructor Form? They get set pieces like they're would-be Gremlins, or Gremlins 2 for that matter (nah fuck that that's too good to reference here, sorry Joe).
You remember the Gatekeeper and Keymaster, the former being the first sexually-charged visual for me and an entire generation of millennials via Weaver? She's here and Keymaster are back, briefly, as is Gozer (though unlike a certain missing actor, spoiler, don't care, they didn't recast that obscure European model I can't remember). Don't forget:
- Symmetrical bookstacking
- "Who you gonna call?"
- Card guessing game (Post credits)
- That pole (uh... huh)
- Revelation 6:12 .... wait, wasn't that 7:12? Don't go trying to change your goof reference but still put it there, you jerks
I'm sure there are many many other "Easter eggs" here, and it all draws attention to the fact that now what used to be just funny stuff that Ackroyd was somewhat serious about in-between joint hits and Ramis was sending up as writers is now LORE in all caps, and yet there aren't any NEW ideas here for what could be scary or inventive, things involving the supernatural that might have not been present in 1984 but would be there in what appears to be the nexus point of supernatural activity in the middle of nowhere.
At the same time as my mind wandered at points in the movie (and it's a little long so I had time), I started to nitpick mayhap but realized these were legit logic gaps; why would a near apocalyptic supernatural event be basically forgotten thirty-five some odd years later, or... ever? Why is the ad for the Ghostbusters commercial sitting at a measly 100k views on YouTube? Is Carrie Coon old enough to not have been born to whoever her mother is (who we never hear about at least I don't don't so) and even if little Phoebe - a character who's intellectual curiosity is charming and cool, despite that her arc is not really pronounced or rather she doesn't need to *learns* she's a genius - was never told about him Stranger Things never asked either? It all points to this Spengler-as-deranged-but-Secretly-Genius-Hermit works as a story device unto itself, maybe, but not with all this other stuff around it and certainly not this seriously.
Now, a lot of at least the first half and even into like two-thirds of Afterlife is actually.... fine, believe it or not. I miss the Jason Reitman of his first four films, where he managed to make a mark for himself as a real talent with his own satirical bent and excellent control with dark comedy and his (even better) casts, and I know there's a good chance we may never get that guy again (his previous two films, Tully and Front Runner, were also not terrible but either pale shadows or too heavily flawed to stack alongside his early work), and I can't know for sure if he had to take this on to honor his dad or the studio or begged him or maybe he just needed to get out of his own head, but he actually manages to set the table for some amiable scenes and interactions between the characters, types or (in the case of Coon) underwritten as they may be, and Grace in particular on a performance level helps to keep things on some fun-grounded level.
Ironically, she manages to be a 1000% more of a believable Ghostbuster than the ones in that 2016 misfire (which was bad for different reasons, and I won't litigate that here go watch the Mr Plinkett review). I even kind of enjoyed the staging and action of that one scene with Fatter Sadder Slimer (do we still call it Slimer I dunno).
But then something kind of sinks in, maybe around that Stay Puft scene or earlier, and it really digs its heels into delivering all of this so seriously and it becomes lame and irritating and kind of insufferable with wasted side characters (as an aside what a waste of a talent like Bokeem Woodbine of all people, and his daughter as the slightly sassy but mostly blank daughter who gets interested in Strange Woolfhard or whoever).
And I know once she calls Ray it reveals it's cards even more fully into Force Awakens territory, and I knew that we'd get all three surviving members... uh oh woops we have #4 here in uncanny CGI (but it's OK because he's a trimmer Ramis than he was later in life derp) and it becomes treacle central even as it has to do the thing of upping the stakes and visuals to an extent that I couldn't anymore. It's not that the rest of the movie doesn't have these issues sprinkled around, but by the time we have to settle into that last section and two of our adults become Gatekeeper and Keymaster (though much less horny it seems), it's all over.
I think to end this rant-view I want to center on something with this that I think is an example of what the issue is here, and again it's a different one than what Paul Feig had with his Ghostbusters (or one of them): the musical score. Elmer Bernstein may not be as known as a household name as like John Williams (again the grandeur and leitmotifs of Star Wars is fitting he came back again for TFW and so on) or Bernard Herrmann or that Bear McCreary fella (you're saying who forget it I'm rolling), but he was exceptional in his field and did a lot of different scores for a variety of genres.
When he came to Ghostbusters he had become the "comedy" guy for a number of years and maybe resented it, but in a way he was perfect for the film because he came at it in the way of "this theme will sound like Peter Venkman ambling around and kind of grouchy but not a bad guy" or the epic high points for when things get scary have those high strings and even the ambivalence of rounding a corner of a bookshelf is there in the music. It's a score that is loaded with character and reflects the world its in.
This Aftermath score has times when it has its own beats and personality (and as another praise I enjoy the needle drops here, semi obscure 60s rock that kind of fits and I can't explain why yet), but 80% of the time are all the Elmer Bernstein themes, maybe with a little potential twinge but not really, and eventually it (pun again) gives up the ghost and just says fuck it and does all the themes we've heard before. You know it could be something really interesting if it tried, but it settles into the familiar like a junkie in a stupor, and makes a grave mistake for it digging into a literal mine of Mythology for dramatic depth. That's what this is.
Ok, one more nice thing... Phoebe's science jokes were amusing.
