I honestly didn’t watch Afterlife just because I didn’t have the chance but heard it was at least…fine if not good.
This…this looks like an unrelated script that got repurposed.
What do you all think?
Looks worth watching to me.
But I loved the last movie and the original remains one of my all time favorites.
I agree.
I haven’t seen Afterlife. I’ll probably skip this one too.
Afterlife was actually really good for fans of the original. The new cast members work well. Looks like they originals and the new cast members are being assembled for this one with Patton Oswalt added in.
I found the release date is scheduled for March 29, 2024. That doesn’t bode well for the studio believing in the film. I thought it might get a June release on the actual 40th anniversary.
I enjoyed Afterlife. I enjoyed the female one too. They’re just good fun. What’s wrong with that?
This looks like not-a-comedy or barely-a-comedy. Did they have to turn Ghostbusters into a superhero-movie franchise?
Just because it’s not getting a summer release, doesn’t mean the studio thinks poorly of it. They have schedule around other movies on their slate, as well as those of other studios.
But February & March are notoriously where studios dump films that have lost the confidence in the higher ups.
But I hope you’re right.
January and February are dump months. March not so much. March 2024 has this one, the Dune sequel, The Fall Guy movie… I think it’s for movies they don’t think are going to be tentpoles but still expect to do well.
As someone who grew up with Ghostbusters, I didn’t care much for Afterlife. For this one, I may catch it when it streams if I think about it. Personally, I’d rather see a continuation of the 2016 reboot, if they promise to disregard the improve stuff and write a good story.
Trailer is out:
Looks OK.
I think the new trailer is the second one. I think I saw this one in a movie theater about a month ago.
Just finished watching. It is fine, I guess…
Really liked the original. Found this to be boring. Couple of funny lines from the Firemaster, and Bill Murray gave it a bit of life in the later part. Other than that, it’s otherwise dull.
I really liked Afterlife and thought it was surprisingly well-directed by someone who’d largely helmed diaglogue-heavy dramas before it.
Frozen Empire was…fine I guess? Way too much clunky exposition and plot holes. The first half of the flick seemed very low-energy. And the climax was oddly static: for something earth-demolishing to be resolved in one large room, with the stars standing awkwardly in a row for much of it, felt like a pandemic-shoot compromise (or a Bill Murray “I’ll show up but I won’t walk anywhere” compromise).
That said, Patton Oswalt was brilliant and I wish he’d had more to do.
Calling Frozen Empire fine is the way to go, I guess, which is mildly disappointing. I did like it, and I liked it more than the reviewers did from what I’ve read. I also want Jason Reitman to succeed in continuing his father’s legacy with this franchise and I think he’s doing an OK job but I also guess that he has to balance what he wants with what the studio wants – Ivan Reitman is credited as one of the producers. The guys at Red Letter Media likened the film to an equivalent of the Real Ghostbusters cartoon and I think that kind of fits.
A few thoughts:
I’m not sure how Walter Peck is the mayor. I understand movie-wise that they got the antagonist EPA guy back to be the heel again, but it would seem to me that after the first Ghostbusters, he would have quietly disappeared. Or he should be retired now.
I liked Phoebe’s storyline and Mckenna does a great job in the role. I think they kind of waffle on her relationship with Melody though. The scenes with the two together were good and had some nice emotional moments, but were they besties or was it something more romantic?
Trevor’s bit with Slimer was amusing but I don’t know if it really paid off. It gave Finn Wolfhard a storyline though.
I admit that I laughed when Gary sang the Ghostbusters song. Hearing him sing about ‘bustin’ made me feel good.
Dan Aykroyd seemed really enthusiastic to be there. I appreciate that Akroyd and Ernie Hudson got to reprise their roles. Bill Murray was there and I think they got as much out of him as they could.
It seems crazy that there would be a whole Ghostbusting lab that’s operational 24 hours but only seems to be staffed during the day. Also that they had a machine that could turn someone into a ghost for two minutes. That was an interesting way to summon Garakka though.
Which then made me wonder why they had all these efforts focused on capturing and holding ghosts. It all seems like it’s set up so ghost can escape (which they do). I wonder if they could devise a method to enable ghosts to move on from our dimensional plane.
The final battle was cool but a bit underwhelming. It’s a big showdown that takes place inside the firehouse. I could have been bigger. I thought Garakka’s character design was done well and he did seem like a threat to me.
Kumail Nanjiani and Patton Oswalt were fine additions but the cast did get a bit overstuffed.
I wish that the Stay-Puft truck at the end had a big face on the front of it to make it an homage to Maximum Overdrive.
So are we to assume that all the ghosts that had been stored in the trap for the past 40 years were now freed? Seems like having Gozer and Viggo out in the world again would be a pretty bad thing and not cause for celebration…
Gozer and Viggo weren’t trapped and stored at the end of the first two movies but at the end of Frozen Empire the crew was chasing after the same ghost that they chased and captured at the beginning of the movie.
I liked it a lot. Yes, there were things that could have been done better, but aren’t there always?
Ghostbusters is a very sentimental thing for me. My sons and a bit later my daughter loved it. My oldest has a No Ghosts Allowed tattoo on his back. We had a Xmas for the boys that was all Ghostbusters. Firehouse, ecto1, figures, sheets, comforters, sleeping bags, and more.
My oldest and I went and saw it. He liked it, but thought they tried to put too many story lines in, and made it less of a comedy. I liked the mother’s style of parenting. She’s a hoot.
We went and saw it today, and that is the first time in a very long time that I’ve become bored less than halfway into a movie. Every joke telegraphed, every beat predictable.
I stuck it out because my wife was there and I thought she might be enjoying it, but the first words out of her mouth were “my god that was boring”, and the second words were" I found myself rewriting the script as it went along."
For the record, we both enjoyed Afterlife well enough.
Ernie Hudson looked pretty good for 77 though.