Saw Ghostbusters: Afterlife. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. It follows the family of the estranged daughter of Egon from the original Ghostbusters films. Her family is struggling but gets word that their father, Egon, has died leaving them a creepy old farm in the middle of nowhere. Soon the precocious teens of the family are discovering ghostbusting equipment and having delightfully retro good times.
I was worried, going in, that the film would have learned the lessons of 2016's Ghostbusters reboot too well: it wouldn't dare to change anything and would be a slavish parade of half-remembered kitsch. There is an inevitable element of that. We do see the ghostbusters car and their proton packs and their outfits and many many other call-backs, but they keep all of that from feeling forced or from taking over the film too much (the damned tiny stay-puffed marshmallow men completely derail the film however and I hated them.) The plot device of the kids uncovering the life of their grandfather keeps the whole thing feeling like less of a re-tread than a re-discovery.
The film follows two main tracks. One for each of the kids: the son of the family is a youngish teenager played by that guy from stranger things who is hungry for love and whose storyline I did not give a damn about. The other story line revolves around the daughter who is neuro-atypical and is friends with a boy named podcast who is always putting gadgets on his head. I found her story much more compelling and interesting since she was actually figuring everything out and saving the day.
The film moves us out of the city and into rural America, mirroring a real-life refocus on what the exurbs are up to. We spend a lot of time uncovering the life of a man regarded by many to be a crazy conspiracy theorist. Despite the surprisingly multi-racial townsfolk, the film feels somewhat regressive and (non-politically) conservative. I suppose being a remake, it can't help this too much though.
No comments:
Post a Comment