- Location: Justin and Gina's
- Ghostbusters: Afterlife is paradoxically the second-best Ghostbusters movie and essentially just a nostalgia-crammed vehicle for Easter egg references to the first film. Most of the allusions aren't even that creative - here is a Twinkie, here are some marshmallows, here is that colander-shaped head-scanning device. At one point, a character looks at the camera and asks "Who you gonna call?" which feels derivative even by Ray Parker, Jr. standards. And it probably goes without saying that director Jason Reitman has much in common with the director of the first film, who happens to be his father.
- This time around, it's Egon Spengler's awkward prodigy granddaughter Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) and awkward non-prodigy grandson Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) who are doing most of the ghostbusting, with the help of absurdly-named locals Lucky Domingo (Celeste O'Connor) and Podcast (Logan Kim). Representing the adults are the amusingly irresponsible science teacher Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd) and the late Egon's much put-upon daughter Callie (Carrie Coon). Did I mention that Egon is dead? That doesn't prevent the film from bringing him back in what is obviously intended as a respectful tribute to the late Harold Ramis.
- The most entertaining parts of Ghostbusters: Afterlife are those that feature most of the original cast (Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, and Sigourney Weaver), although admittedly that calls into question why you would ever watch this version instead of that one. More disappointing to me, however, was how horrifyingly unoriginal the film's many ghosts are. Taking the place of Slimer is a new ghost named Muncher, who also eats things. Instead of a giant marshmallow man, we get a swarm of tiny marshmallow men. Standing in for Gozer the Gozerian is...well, somehow Gozer returned. In any case, I look forward to the next failed Ghostbusters franchise reboot, which should be arriving any day now.
