GHOSTBUSTERS: STRANGER THINGS EDITION - Reviews & Reaction

[AndyDursin]

Can't be any more lifeless than Murray's appearance in the 2016 film!

I definitely don't expect Murray and Aykroyd to be running around in 2020 getting top billing and bustin' ghosts. There's a way of integrating those characters but time will tell if Reitman is able to do it successfully.

I also wouldn't be surprised if this ends up featuring a young cast -- especially seeing how well Sony did with JUMANJI -- and playing to more of a family audience, which if you look at it, would make sense. The series already did it once via THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS and GHOSTBUSTERS II itself, which was much gentler in terms of its humor (one of its drawbacks for me). Between the cartoons, toys and video games (the Xbox game was just fantastic), I'm sure they know what the franchise can generate in terms of ancillary revenue -- things the 2016 movie failed to take advantage of (among other things, like being ill-considered on a conceptual level and just not being funny enough).

Either way, nobody is forcing anyone to buy a ticket. I did buy one for the 2016 film, and wish I hadn't. Hopefully I won't regret it again!

[AndyDursin]

Forget it sounding like STRANGER THINGS....apparently they really want STRANGER THINGS!

This is horrible...."single mom and son arrive in a small town"... sounds like something out of the 90s. Dads just dont exist in this dojo!

https://deadline.com/2019/03/carrie-coo ... 202568194/

[AndyDursin]

Sigourney's back...

When Ghostbusters 3 arrives in theaters next summer, Sigourney Weaver will be along for the ride.

The actress confirmed she’ll join co-stars Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd in the sequel, as she reprises her role as cellist Dana Barrett.

“It’s going to be crazy working with the guys again!” Weaver told Parade magazine in a lengthy feature about her life and career.

Weaver introduced the role of Barrett, whose apartment was haunted by an evil spirit, in the original 1984 film. She had a feeling the movie would be a hit.

“I knew it would be big. The script was so funny and full of heart,” she said. “Ghostbusters changed my life.”

https://deadline.com/2019/06/sigourney- ... 202629678/

[AndyDursin]

Whole lot of "meh" from this trailer IMO.

Young cast a la JUMANJI absolutely confirmed. Beyond that, not sure what to make of this, except that somebody watched a lot of STRANGER THINGS beyond just casting the same kid (who I'm kind of growing tired of honestly).

Rural country setting's also kind of odd.

[BobaMike]

Shouldn't Ghostbusters be, you know....funny?

[AndyDursin]

No kidding! There's nothing funny in that trailer at all.

Really looks like a STRANGER THINGS episode. "Let's have the kids find the Ghostbusters gear" and take it from there.

I mean, if this were going to Netflix, I'd check it out...but paying to see it on the big-screen is going to take some serious, widespread recommendations.

[AndyDursin]

Any enthusiasm I had for this is gone -- there is NOT ONE LAUGH in that entire trailer, or even an attempt at one -- but the Fanboy Brigade on Youtube is in tears.

"Look, it's the stay puft marshallow man!'

"Look, it's the Zool-Dogs!"

"Look, it's Annie Potts!"

Looks to me like typical Sony/Disney nostalgia-pandering, "family audience" demographic-expansion formula at play again. The irreverent humor of the first movie has been thoroughly tossed in favor of a low-budget (solemn) remake of the original, once again in the guise of a sequel, this time with mopey teenagers instead of SNL comedians. Whoopee!

[Eric W.]

No thanks.

[AndyDursin]

Spoiler.

Oh hell, sorry, I don't care.

[Monterey Jack]

The appeal of the original was that it was a whiz-bang special effects movie that didn't take itself seriously, so the dewy-eyed solemnity that those of our generation apparently have for it is baffling. Shouldn't a comedy trailer have some LAUGHS?

[AndyDursin]

I think it's because this one is NOT a comedy. Comedies aren't PC, and more over, they don't make enough international dollars. So Sony is trying to reconfigure the IP to suit the same audience that shows up for the modern JUMANJI films, placating nostalgia nerds with cameos and "shout outs" while serving up an "inspiring" yet weepy story that favors special FX over laughs.

I mean, I don't see the aesthetic appeal in a teenage Ghostbusters remake shot in a rural Canadian town -- but clearly this movie did not cost very much. This isn't on the scale of the previous movies, probably because Sony found out there was no foreign audience for the McCarthy film (which I'd imagine had a bigger budget than this picture).

[AndyDursin]

Also the product placement in the trailer alone was outrageous -- Walmart, Doritos, etc.

[AndyDursin]

It's THE FORCE AWAKENS of Ghostbusters movies!

https://www.thewrap.com/ghostbusters-af ... paul-rudd/

It may seem like freeing “Afterlife” from the baggage and mythologies of the later installments is a good idea, but ironically, all it’s really done is given Jason Reitman carte blanche to repeat a lot of the major beats from the original movie, but with different characters and different settings. Reitman’s direction may be sharp and professional, but that’s only in the service of familiar material, so it falls to an excellent cast to make the most of a very repetitive situation.

The story kicks in when Egon Spengler (originally played by the late Harold Ramis) dies in the small town of Summerville, alone and under mysterious supernatural circumstances. His dilapidated estate has been bequeathed to his hitherto unseen daughter, Callie (Carrie Coon), a single mother raising a teenaged sarcasm dispenser named Trevor (Finn Wolfhard, “Stranger Things”) and a young scientific genius named Phoebe (Mckenna Grace, “Malignant”) who takes after her grandfather. A lot.

They move back into Egon’s old house and discover that it’s a wreck, but with nowhere else to go — they just got evicted — Callie decides to move in. Trevor gets a summer job at burger joint so he can try, and repeatedly fail, to make an good impression on his cool co-worker Lucky (Celeste O’Connor, “Selah and the Spades”). Phoebe is given a choice of asbestos removal or summer school, so she opts for the latter and meets a geeky seismologist and teacher named Mr. Grooberson (Paul Rudd).

And thank goodness for that: Not because Paul Rudd is gift to every comedy he’s in (he is), but also because Grooberson is the only person in this whole movie who seems to remember that the Ghostbusters were actually a thing once. One might assume that after a group of scientists proved the existence of the afterlife, and New York was overrun by translucent nightmare monsters, and a giant Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man exploded all over the east coast, that the world would have been changed forever. Or at least the incident would be constantly exploited for nostalgia purposes in our 1980s-obsessed western civilization.

But apparently not. They’re just a footnote in history. Phoebe finds Egon’s old equipment in the secret basement of the house without knowing what it does, Trevor rebuilds the Ecto-1 in the garage without knowing what it is, and everyone discovers that ghosts are real and that the mysterious mountain of mysterious mystery that’s looming outside their town — the former home of the Shandor Mining Co. — is the epicenter of something pretty bad, supernaturally speaking.

Reitman takes his time setting the stage in “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” confidently revealing old pieces of the puzzle just frequently enough to tease, but not so slowly that we want to throw things at the screen and yell, “Get on with it!” The snappy dialogue and stellar ensemble keep even the most mundane moments amusing and effective, and frequent Reitman collaborator Eric Steelberg’s versatile cinematography bounces acrobatically from high-key comedy, sun-drenched Americana to multicolored supernatural monsters floating through inky shadows.

For a long time, it seems as though “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” is finding its own voice, abandoning the fast-talking, blue collar, New York rags-to-riches storyline of the original in favor of an Amblin-esque, family friendly sci-fi/fantasy adventure. It’s still “Ghostbusters” but it’s a slightly different flavor, with the potential for more surprises as the film continues.

It’s only once the supernatural plot kicks in that we realize that Reitman’s film isn’t about pushing the Ghostbusters in any new directions whatsoever. “Afterlife” is about a group of millennials learning just how cool the 1980s were and deciding to make it live again, in a story that revisits a staggering number of beats from the original. There’s still a Slimer sequence, except this ghost is even fatter and called “Muncher,” and now it’s a car chase. The scene with the self-frying eggs is now a scene with self-skewering marshmallows, taking place in the world’s least populated Wal-Mart, devoid of a single solitary employee or fellow customer, but open for business just the same.

One could go on, but there are so few surprises once “Afterlife” gets going that ruining anything seems mean-spirited. It’s worth noting that the film climaxes in a sequence that’s at once wholly underwhelming, repeating scenes from both the original film and the beginning of “Afterlife” itself and failing to escalate the action either to build suspense or dazzle. Instead the younger Reitman’s film resorts to extreme, and frankly questionable, measures to tug at the pre-existing fanbase’s heartstrings.

Suffice it to say, fans of the original — especially the ones who love finding Easter eggs — will probably be satisfied. Those who enjoyed the 1984 film and who actually wanted a new installment of “Ghostbusters” to offer something different, instead of shamelessly pandering to pre-existing fans, may be disappointed, but they can probably settle for “Afterlife’s” slick and straightforward, formulaic craftsmanship. New audiences will probably love the eclectic energy of the young cast, particularly Grace, who carries the film wonderfully despite screenwriters Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan (Netflix’s upcoming “A Boy Called Christmas”) sometimes giving her dialogue that sounds like it was left over from a very different draft of her character.

The most noteworthy aspect of “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” is that, by the time the lights go up, one gets the distinct impression that all the really mattered was clearing the slate and setting this franchise up for future exploitation. That Reitman made a heartfelt film about how great the first “Ghost Busters” was (and suspiciously ignoring almost all the rest of the franchise) is nice, in a way, but incidental to the film’s ultimate suggestion that, in the end, all that matters is that the “Ghostbusters” business must go on. Not because ghosts need to be busted, but because rich people simply refuse to let it die.

[AndyDursin]

Oh brother.

Elmer Bernstein’s familiar jaunty piano melodies playing as two middle-schoolers walk down the street is the musical equivalent of the Steve Buscemi “How do you do, fellow kids?” meme.

Review: Bustin' doesn't feel good in 'Ghostbusters: Afterlife,' a frustrating franchise retread

https://www.yahoo.com/news/review-busti ... 17209.html

[Monterey Jack]

No kidding! There's nothing funny in that trailer at all.

Sadly, the film has little more mirth than what's been witnessed in the trailers.

6/10

It's kind of astounding...this movie is so up its own ass with dewy-eyed reverence for one of the most irreverent comedies of the 80s that there's an almost complete dearth of laughs. I mean, it's not a terrible movie, but, for God's sake, if you have Paul Rudd in the cast, couldn't you have given him some funny quips? Most of the movie is just the cast's wide-eyed gawping at special effects that aren't especially special, and the plot is wholly recycled from the original (as is Elmer Bernstein's score, although Rob Simonson's re-mixing of Bernstein's familiar melodies is actually one of the better scores I've heard recently, replete with Cynthia Millar on the Ondes Martenot). And a lot of people are going to be frothing mad at how wasted the original cast is, all showing up literally within the last ten minutes just to stand around like wax figures and deliver stale wisecracks that remind the audience -- at approximately the 100-minute mark -- that, oh yeah, this film is supposed to be FUNNY. Add to that a mawkish (if thankfully wordless) climatic "cameo", and you have a movie that's so suffused with fanservice that it forgets to just be. Say what you will about the 2016 reboot, but at least that film knew that it was, first and foremost, a comedy. This just plays like a low-grade 80s Amblin production set in a crushingly boring Canadian wheatfield, so even when the ghosts break out and start wreaking "havoc" in the nearby town, since there are only about fifty extras, it all flashed by in about fifty seconds' worth of screentime. I liked McKenna Grace's central performance, and there are flashes of the lite creepiness of the original movie in fits and spurts, but overall it's a distressingly mirthless experience that only exists to "fix" the franchise after the failure of the 2016 movie. Even if there weren't a pandemic going on, though, I doubt this would make much more than that film did. It'll get a decent opening weekend, then crater badly.