Who you gonna call?
GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE
Cert 12A ★★★★ In cinemas now
There’s “somethin’ strange” in your neighbourhood cinema this weekend – a reboot that spookily resurrects the spirit of the original. Original writer/ director Ivan Reitman returns as producer and he and his film-maker son Jason (Juno, Young Adult) bravely ditch the New York setting to introduce a new generation of ghostbusters.
But two key ingredients of the old formula are brought back from the grave – the deadpan humour and the heart.
Mckenna Grace is 12-year-old science buff Phoebe, dragged from New York with her 15-year-old brother Trevor (Finn
Wolfhard) to live in the rundown Oklahoma farmhouse where her ghostbuster grandfather Egon Spengler (the late Harold Ramis) lived out his last years.
When their struggling single mum Callie (Carrie Coon) sees the state of her inheritance, she is in no mood to reminisce about her father’s 80s heyday.
Fans of the film may feel differently. A bit like Halloween 2018, Afterlife pretends the previous film, the misfiring female-lead redo from five years ago, never happened.
While that film went for self-aware snarkiness, this is an unashamed nostalgia trip as the curious Phoebe discovers Egon’s gadgets hidden in the farmhouse and Trevor uncovers a rusty Ecto-1 in the garage. As the reason for Egon’s mysterious move to Oklahoma is revealed, the Reitmans summon up retro spooks rendered in endearingly old-school effects.
The final act is perhaps a little too familiar but Paul Rudd nicely channels Bill Murray’s world-weary delivery as jaded teacher Mr Grooberson, and little Logan Kim, as Phoebe’s new sidekick Podcast, delivers his lines with the timing of a seasoned pro.
“You can be whatever you want to be,” he shrieks when he learns of Phoebe’s famous grandfather. “A DJ or an influencer!”
Afterlife may trade on nostalgia but, like the original, its real power lies in sharp dialogue and the fizzing chemistry of its leads.
It trades on nostalgia but its real power lies in sharp dialogue and chemistry