Plus Column: NYC
Minus Column: Day After Tomorrow freeze
All right, I’ll admit I’m an easy mark, but I think that looks pretty great. So cool to see the Ghostbusters back in their Manhattan digs.
holy hell…do I need to see Afterlife?
I’ll give it a shot.
Okay that looks like a lot of fun.
Studio head: “Hey guys, thanks for coming to this meeting. Now I want you to think about the magic of the original Ghostbusters movie in 1984. Are you thinking about it?”
Producers en masse: “Yes, boss.”
Studio head: “Great. Now you tell me: what was the thing that made Ghostbusters special and such an alluring IP for us?”
Producer: “Oh, I know! The existential, apocalyptic threat and high drama of a mass-casualty event and potential overwhelming loss of human life.”
Studio head: “Holy shit. It’s like you guys are reading my mind. Here’s this unrelated natural disaster script we overpaid for. See if we can shoehorn some Ghostbusters into it and get me a shooting schedule by noon tomorrow.”
(I thought Afterlife was OK – better than I expected, anyway, but this is not giving me good vibes.)
Don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll be coming to the market with some brand-name partner soon enough.
I liked Afterlife better than Ghostbusters 2. A LOT better.
I’m still sad the 2016 movie didn’t get a sequel. It certainly deserved one.
Oof. I can’t sign on to that. Setting aside all the weird anti-women chud narrative around it, I thought 2016 was pretty bad on its own merits.
This looks pretty dumb. I thought the previous one was alright until the kinda boring climax.
I dunno, I don’t mind going back to NY, but I’d’ve preferred smaller scale ghost problems handled mostly by the kids, make it an endearing adventure than an overblown Avengers / disaster movie with all the crusty old timers gumming things up with the nostalgia baggage. We’ve already had the handoff in the last film.
I say Just…Let…It…Die.
Despite the tragic continuing presence of Ant-Man, I’m very onboard for this. Saw Afterlife at a friend’s Halloween party the other week and wound up really enjoying it. I recognize it’s a sort of messy, pandering extrusion of pure Modern Entertainment Product, and therefore maybe not objectively good or even okay, but I’m extremely okay being pandered to and had a ton of fun with it. Heck, I don’t generally like narratives of the “Sassy Teens Do an Adventure” in live action stuff (weirdly more tolerant of it in animation, but then again, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is the best show ever made), but Afterlife clicked just fine for me.
TBH, I also mostly enjoyed the 2016 rebooster, especially Kate McKinnon (who’s fabulous in anything) and Thor/Hollywood Chris #7, so it is sad that it didn’t get another go. Mostly the chuds’ fault, but alas.
To triggercut’s funny scenario. . .
. . . for me at least, what really worked about the OG Ghostbusters (and 2, which I’m an unrepentant fan of) was that bizarro fusion of scifi-horror action-adventure; the probably pretty improvisational comedy and the slacker chic aesthetic that the SNL alums brought to bear; and the mild feel-sy vibes of found family and light romance. I feel like that’s a very particular Venn Diagram of traits that kinda got lost over the years. I guess the closest thing we get nowadays is the Marvelverse, but despite the inclusion of a lot of humor, none of it has quite the same vibe as GB (mind, there’s also a lot of bits of GB 1984 that really don’t feel too great nowadays and tbh probably didn’t then, either, but in my defense, I wasn’t born yet to be squicked out by the treatment of women in it), and of course, the MCU flicks inevitably devolve into SKY LASER PORTENDS ARMAGEDDON, BESUITED NERDS FIGHT CGI WITH CGI UNTIL VICTORY OR TO-BE-CONTINUED, which I’m pretty bored of at this point.
So, to that end, having Frozen Empire seemingly dive right back into the Ghost Apocalypse well is kinda disappointing, but if they can weasel in a little more humor, maintain the sense of heart/warmth that did permeate Afterlife in spite of everything, give us some more classic nods without getting high off its own ass fumes, and feature at least 3 humorous instances of Ant-Man getting hurt by things, I’ll love it regardless.
Yeah they totally stole the show.
Apologies to those quoted for my incessant need to edit my text rather than just proofreading it in the first place, thus dumping 20 notifications on you all.
Ghostbusters 2 is one of those things I had no idea people had such a low opinion of until many years later, naturally enough through the internet. But I still love the movie. I liked the 2016 movie for being interesting and trying something different, but it was basically just a riff-fest which felt kinda weird. And I found Afterlife a fun return to the original universe with some decent enough characters. Basically, I have no complaints about any of the Ghostbusters movies.
I wanted to like 2016, but it was awful. None of the characters were remotely funny or interesting. Essentially, the writing was awful.
I love Ghostbusters 2 for two reasons:
1 - Bill Murray’s delivery of the line “Hello Dana”
2 - Pretty much every single thing Peter MacNicol does in the film. I’ve been a fan of his ever since The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers.