OldBoy

Great clip.

devilshalo

I will agree to disagree with Draven. I found nothing funny about GBII or GB 2016. That the original creative team couldn't replicate the magic of the first and can only muster laughs from the comedic side-sidekick for you means your bar was set so high that nothing would have met your expectations. I can't think of a comedy sequel that has equaled or bettered its original (Bogus Journey may be the one exception).

Rodney2187

The original Ghostbusters is one of my favorite movies of all time. I cosplayed as a Ghostbuster even before Star Wars. The more I watch it, the more I appreciate it.

Ghostbusters 2 isn’t as good, but still far better than so many comedies released now. I rewatched it recently and couldn’t believe how much I enjoyed it. It’s so much better than I remember it. Both movies are infinitely quotable.

Afterlife is the opposite. The more I think about it, the more some things don’t make sense and the less I like it. It’s not very funny and in my opinion doesn’t add anything to the franchise. The animated series and video game were better.

I love the cast of the 2016 movie, I’m a huge SNL fan, but I’ve never felt like watching it. The trailer plus all the drama surrounding it with people going after each other just turned me off. Perhaps I’ll see it one day, but there’s already so much else out there to see and too little time.

I just don’t think comedies are anywhere near as good as they used to be.

Draven

I’ve probably done Murray’s “you’re short, your belly button sticks out too far and you’re a terrible burden on your poor mother” joke a million times whenever my wife asked me to put one of our kids down when they were babies or the “we just gave him some French bread pizza” bit with Annie Potts or repeated the “very good Louis…short but pointless” line from Egon or Murray’s “hairless pets…weird” line. I keep thinking of great moments in that movie. The original cast is great in GBII too and it is infinitely more quotable than Afterlife.

For the life of me, I still cannot remember a single joke from Afterlife. I just bought it digitally because my wife likes it. Maybe I’ll watch it again to see if I missed something funny in the theater.

Eric F

Saw it, hated it. Nothing good about it, no laughs, the new cast had no chemistry, everything seemed forced. The movie ended and me and a friend were like, “that’s it”? Even the 2nd movie was better than this.

JayTL

I liked it well enough. Got some laughs out of me, and I was invested in the characters.

RichC2

Liked this well enough but the plot kinda seemed overly convoluted (and yet truncated) for the sake of tying back to the OG. I'm also really tired of the CG orgy finales, They all just seem interchangeable and anticlimactic.

But this still had more good than bad. Even if the movie I really wanted was the one with Ernie Hudson after the credits.

Draven

I thought for sure they were going to reveal he was running the “Ghostbusters as a franchise” idea and..nope. Dropped the ball on that one too.

Josh-da-man

I think that one of the stumbling blocks of this franchise goes back to Ghostbusters 2 where it was revealed that there aren't any ghosts to bust when there isn't some kind of big threat like Gozer or Vigo looming on the horizon.

The opening of GB2, where they're performing at childrens' birthday parties set a really bad tone for what followed (and didn't follow). I know that a lot of the humor from the first movie came from the idea that they were underdogs, but it's a well they shouldn't have dipped back into.

And Afterlife continued this trend, where the Ghostbusters broke up a long time ago and went their separate ways.

Gunde

I fucking loved every second of this. Made me smile hugely and feel nostalgic in the nice way. That is all.

Double_Oh_7

Was this intended to be a comedy? Because there wasn't a single laugh for me.

story

I caught myself laughing and thinking about Podcast today.

Daytripper

Same.

GoldenJCJ

This was fun but I think my love for Harold Ramis elevated my score about threes stars higher than it normally would have been.

I thought the cast was really good. McKenna, Coon, and Rudd we’re all great to watch. I thought the kid who played Podcast was going to be super annoying when he was first introduced but he ended up not being so bad at all, even if his dialogue was a little too mature for his age.

Yeah the last 1/3 felt like a retread of the original but considering that was the required ritual to resurrect Gozer, I was ok with it.

I had managed to avoid just enough spoilers to be surprised when Egon’s ghost showed up. I admit to getting misty eyed at the end when he started helping to guide Phoebes proton pack and especially when the camera panned to all 4 original Ghostbusters standing together again.

The movie was a love letter to Harold Ramis, as it should have been, and I’m ok with it.

Dan

Watched this today with my wife and kid.
It was... fine. Just fine. Not bad, not amazing, but serviceable. A little too much "remember this? And this? And how about this?" in its style, but that's exactly what the target audience wanted so

The Egon ghost was... weird. Product placement was particularly egregious. I don't get why the Stay Puft's were all suicidal. Is it because they were doomed to life on a Walmart shelf?
​​​​​​

That said, I liked some stuff about it. Having it take place in a small town was nice. The prairies always look great on screen Weaklings like scrawny teenagers wearing proton packs is now canon, etc.
edit: also Bokeem Woodbine. Dude rules.

My wife loved it. My kid was indifferent.

maxfisher

Just watched this with my wife last night and have pretty mixed feelings on it.

As others have said, this is much more a kids movie than the others. In and of itself, that wouldn’t have been bad, but they fell into the trap of making the kids super heroes. To me, the original is about a group of ordinary schlubs who mostly luck and bullshit their way into succeeding. In this, the kids might as well have been wearing capes for how easily they did things that should’ve been impossible for them.

Also, I didn’t mind going back to the well with Gozer, but hated how they used it as an excuse for Egon to be a shit to the rest of the original team. I mean, he realized that someone was trying to bring back an entity they had already defeated as a team, so he steals all their shit and abandons them without a word as to what’s going on? The whole reasoning behind them splitting up was handled pretty terribly and lessened the impact of seeing the team back together at the end.

That said, some of the nostalgic moments hit their notes pretty well. Seeing Murray in character as Venkman put a big smile on my face. Overall, I thought it was funnier than some people are giving it credit for. And pretty much every member of the cast did a solid job with what they had to work with.

I can see revisiting this from time to time and enjoying pieces of it, but it left me with almost no interest in seeing the franchise continue. I’d probably rank it fourth behind the original two and the reimagining.

Deftones

Just watched this. It was actually a lot better than I expected. Tons of fan service, but truly felt like a continuation of the Ghostbusters story.

B5Erik

I finally saw this over the weekend, and I really liked it a lot. It was what they needed to do - something different that incorporated the Ghostbusters mythology. I loved how it slowly morphed from a Goonies/Stranger Things type adventure into a more traditional Ghostbusters movie as it went along. And I absolutely LOVED the fan service stuff. I had zero problem with bringing Gozer back, as that made sense. The way they tied this together with the first movie really worked for me. And the ending was perfect, even though most of us saw it coming a mile away. It was the ending I wanted.

Not a perfect movie, but a lot of fun. 4/5

Actually, at the end Ray apologizes to the ghost of Egon that he didn't believe him, so Egon DID tell them, but they didn't believe him (they believed Gozer was gone forever).

CyberpunkCentra

Finally seen it, and I loved it. Great way to end a trilogy. I do admit that the movie had Force Awakens moments in it, but I felt this was still fresh enough. We haven't had a Ghostbusters movie since Ghostbusters 2. Nothing came in between... NOTHING. So, glad to see another one, even if it is one last time, after all these decades.

fujishig

Yeah, having just watched this with the kids this is how I feel about the plot: convoluted and truncated. Like the jumps from scene to scene sometimes make no sense, the characters of the sheriff's daughter especially just seems to change on a whim and they all are way too nonchalant about discovering ghosts and then working all this crazy machinery. Like yeah I get that the 12 year old is a genius and had a ghost helping her out but man. Maybe it was in the original but you can trap a gatekeeper without even using a proton beam? And some scenes were just inexplicably devoid of people: like Walmart. And maybe I missed it but were they implying all the police officers got zapped or something?

It's just the anime nerd in me but the ending reminded me way too much of Goku/Gohan in the cell arc.

But take all that out of it and it was still an enjoyable movie with new leads and something my kids loved, so there's that.

tanman

So I have a confession to make.

I've never seen any of the Ghostbusters movies.

Considering I'm a male in my 40's that's pretty much heresy. I'm definitely familiar with the property and have definitely watched parts of the first two and watched the Real Ghostbusters cartoon occasionally. But never really sat down and watched the movies.

So I decided to correct that and watched all three of them this past week for Halloween.

Ghostbusters - wow great movie. I'm surprised how much of the movie I was already familiar with despite never having fully watched it all. Of course Bill Murray is legendary in this but didn't realize how funny he was in the movie. I definitely didn't expect the movie to be so horny though. Especially for a "family movie." WTF was up with that ghost BJ scene?!

Ghostbusters 2 - This was definitely not the classic the first one was. Still an okay movie and kind of furthered the characters but was just kind of a retread of the original and a lot more self aware then it should have been.

Afterlife - I was really kind of blown away by this movie. This is really the way you handle a long dormant beloved franchise. I don't know maybe since I'm new to the IP and haven't been a decades long fan I didn't have the built in expectations that could go along with that. I appreciate that this movie had so much providence and really cared about the original movie. Just the fact that it was Jason Reitman who directed it was really cool. The love and care they showed in how they handled Ramis's death was really something else as well. I can't think of another IP who handled the death of a actor so well. I was really impressed with the kids in this movie as well. They weren't annoying at all and weren't just one dimensional caricatures of kids. Mckenna Grace was really impressive in this movie. One of the move impressive child performances in recent memory and is what really elevates this movie. She's the link between the past and the future of Ghostbusters and she handled it remarkably well. Maybe I missed it, since it wasn't on my radar, but I'm kind of disappointed this movie didn't seem to get as much buzz at it should have. I guess the timing of the release with the pandemic was pretty unfortunate. Because it's really once of the best 70's/80's property sequels/reboots that I can think of.

story

I agree with all of that and I'm glad you had a good time! Bustin' makes me feel good!

Count Dooku

When Ghostbusters was released in 1984, it was not a "family film" or one that children were taken to see. People in 1984 knew that Murray, Ackroyd, and Ramis were not in the kid-friendly comedy business.

It was the Real Ghostbusters cartoon that introduced the property to children, and is in part to blame for the mediocrity of GB2.

If you are a person who loves the 1984 movie, then you are a person who loves a horror-comedy created by and starring a bunch of the greatest comic talents working in the early 80s. It's not the idea of people having to bust ghosts that makes the movie worthwhile; it's who was involved.
A legacy sequel that continues the story of the 1984 film is fine and hits the nostalgia button, but ultimately it is a movie about kids busting ghosts with Ant-Man in a supporting role.

story

I saw it in the theaters just before I turned five. The librarian ghost may have scarred me for life, but my kids ended up doing much better with it at that age!

What's that, a law firm?!

Count Dooku

Ah yes, a gentle reminder of all the times I was in a movie theater with parents who didn't want to get a sitter, so they brought their too-young kids with them, and the kids just ending up running up and down the aisles, or playing on the floor down in front of the screen.

I know a six year old who loves scary things and loves Ghostbusters. He doesn't understand a single one of the jokes.He just wants to watch the action scenes where they shoot at ghosts with their proton guns.