Ghostbusters: Afterlife 2 Goes Back to NYC Instead of Trying Something New

The most damning and fair critiques of Ghostbusters: Afterlife largely revolve around the film’s third act, where it turn into a blatant remake of story beats from the ’84 movie, just with a lot less edge and far more treacly sentimentality. This is compounded by the disquieting choice to end the movie by using another actor whose face is digitally altered to resemble the deceased Harold Ramis, all so the ghost of Ramis’ Egon Spengler can come back to pass the torch (which post-Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and The Rise of Skywalker might be called the Lucasfilm special). Indeed, the final third of Afterlife plays quite a bit like The Rise of Skywalker wherein a once innovative and bold concept from the Hollywood of the 1970s/‘80s has at last meekly settled for playing the hits.

Hence a fair bit of loathing in critical circles for both movies. And yet, I feel somewhat kinder toward Afterlife. This is in large part due to how distinctly different the first two-thirds of the movie is from the ’84 flick and our general understanding of what a “Ghostbusters” story can be. While the film is still heavily influenced by other ‘80s touchstones—specifically Steven Spielberg and Amblin-produced pictures like E.T. and The Goonies—much of Afterlife is chasing its own ghosts, with Reitman favoring the more grounded and understated humor inherent in his character dramedies from over 10 or more years ago, such as Juno, as opposed to his father’s more adult but free-wheeling style of snarkiness.

At least in its outset, Ghostbusters: Afterlife was about a quirky family with multi-generational hangups, all of which was anchored by a surprisingly charismatic performance from a pint-sized Mckenna Grace, whose deadpan was drier than anything in the ’84 movie but made for a compelling heroine in a family movie. Alas, then, that at a certain point Afterlife opted to stop being a family movie and instead became, well, the ’84 movie writ small.

Which brings me back to my current skepticism toward hearing that Afterlife 2 is returning to the firehouse, NYC vibe that the ’21 picture did so well to escape and subvert. Now that the ghost of Egon Spengler has both literally and metaphorically been put to rest—and the general notion is we’ve seen the last of the villainous Gozer and (probably) Bill Murray’s Peter Venkman—this is the moment to completely break away from nostalgia and easter eggs. If Ghostbusters must continue, and continue through the adventures of Egon’s still largely estranged daughter (Carrie Coon) and her children, why not let them carve their own identity in a different city and with a different style?

Going back to the firehouse seems likely to guarantee more callbacks, more easter eggs, and more of the stuff we saw 40 years ago. Shouldn’t an “afterlife” be about moving on to the next stage and discovering another plane of existence?