By Christopher O’Flaherty

Ghostbusters afterlife is a mix between 1980’s nostalgia and the power of modern cinema. The director Jason Reitman lives up to his father’s original 1984 Ghostbusters movie with this soon to be classic nostalgia trip down memory lane. McKenna Grace steals the show as Phoebe — a young aspiring scientist, the granddaughter of one of the original ghostbusters, Dr Egon Spengler. McKenna Grace does a fantastic job portraying a young child who is not too sure what to do with herself.

The movie starts off at an excellent pace. Throws you right into the deep end and immediately introduces us to the incredible technology that we will be seeing a lot of in this movie. By the time the first 30 minutes of this movie are up. We have been introduced to all the main characters and developed their relationships with each other. A very hard thing to accomplish but Jason Reitman does a fantastic job not boring us with unnecessary nonsense. We want to see some ghosts being busted. That is what we are here for.

Now let’s talk about the casting. Logan Kim as Podcast was excellent casting. He’s funny, he’s different all while not being annoying. He has a love for conspiracy theories and mysteries, so it makes him quite the character and he grew to be one of my favourites throughout the film. Podcast and Phoebes friendship is one you love to see blossom through the movie.

Gary Grooberson, played by Paul Rudd, plays the teacher that teaches summer school. He acts as a sort of help tool for the audience as he explains all the past Ghostbuster tech to the kids, this helps people who have never seen Ghostbusters before understand all the references to the past films. Paul Rudd played the part very well and I only wish I saw more of him in the movie. 

Trevor was played by The Stranger Things star, Finn Wolfhard. Finn did a fantastic t job playing the teenage brother to Phoebe. He’s embarrassed by his mother, he gets into a little bit of trouble and would do a little too much to impress a girl. 

Speaking of the teenage girl. Lucky played by Celeste O’Connor is quite frankly. A boring character. Her dad is a cop but there’s never any story there and doesn’t play any major part in the plot. She kind of feels like she’s there so that Finn Wolfhard’s character has a love interest. She’s just very one dimensional. Celeste O’Connor did the best she could with the script she was given. Just comes down to a poorly written character.

 Another poorly written character was Carrie Coon as the mother, Callie. A character with so much potential, but the writing just falls short. Callie is quite frankly dull. She pretends to not know anything about her father for the majority of the film as if she never knew who he even was. She knew exactly who he was but just decided to lie to her kids and have absolutely no idea what’s going on. It’s weird writing and a character with so much potential was wasted.

Now, the absolute star of the show who really makes this film shine. McKenna Grace as Phoebe. Oh, my days she smashed it. She stole the show with every scene she was in. Her hyper-intelligence really portrays how brilliant she is, but it never comes across as a know-it-all or at all annoying. She was funny, relatable and just amazing. No complaints there, what an amazing actress.

One of the most loved parts of the original Ghostbusters movies from the ’80s was the action scenes. They were cool, fun and creative. Ghostbusters Afterlife delivers this in spades. Action scenes are exciting and well-directed and incredibly fun to watch. The action starts pretty early on in the movie, at about the 30-45 minutes mark. The best part? The action does not slow down. There is this amazing car chase scene with ECTO-1 that is by far the best action scene in the movie. It is fantastic to see the Ghostbusters with modern-day CGI.

Ghostbusters is notorious for also being very funny. Ghostbusters Afterlife has its moments. Paul Rudd kills it every time he is on screen with his witty retorts and smart attitude. Logan Kim as Podcast is by far the funniest character. Although comedy is frequent it does leave room for the spookier and more serious side of Ghostbusters.

I wouldn’t say this movie is scary, but I also wouldn’t say the original Ghostbusters is scary. This movie has more of a creepiness to it. Object floating around the air. Chess pieces move by themselves. Small things that make the movie better while also making sure it’s not pretending to be a horror movie.

Overall, I loved this movie. I walked out of the theatre only wanting more. It’s a fun, humorous, exciting Ghostbuster’s movie and I cannot wait to see what will be done in the future. If you liked the original Ghostbuster movie from 1984, you’ll love this. If you’ve never seen Ghostbusters before, you will also love it. 

Final Rating: 8.5/10