I ain't 'fraid of no waxing nostalgic
This film was a long time in the making. Since the last entry in this exact series (the 2016 reboot/remake is not tied into the more familiar first two films, at least not directly) was released in 1989, that means that this film took 32 years to make. So in effect, it took all of us nearly as long to get a film sequel to the 2nd mediocre film as I have been alive on this earth. Yikes, but that's not an issue really.
What is an issue, for me anyway, is how mixed my feelings are after having seen it in theatres on opening weekend, which have persisted to this day. At first I was so excited that I was shaking, but after a while my anticipation of great things died down akin to a fire waning into mere embers. In part because as the film rolled on more and more, I felt something similar to what I did when I saw the 2016 film in theatres almost six years ago: familiarity with the story beats. This is not a new criticism of either film, but I felt it big time in this one. While the 2016 movie tried (and mostly failed) to do something new (like giving us a new, fresh set of faces not tethered to the original crew), this film simply relies on an almost overwhelming amount of nostalgia value to achieve its goals. It just doesn't have much going for itself as a standalone feature in this franchise.
So let's get some positivity in this review; the presentation is very good. There's something cathartic about seeing the familiar again, like the proton packs, the ECTO-1 vehicle, the ghost trap, and others. While the fictional inclusion of the in-universe adverts for the original crew showing on fake YouTube were a bit hard to swallow (this didn't bother me, it just seemed to be an odd, seemingly unintentional breaking of the fourth wall that I never would have expected), almost everything else that reminded us, the viewers, of the original classic are present & accounted for, and they work.
At least for a while...
You see, this film hinges too much on material from the original film and ends up losing its own identity as a result. What could have been a decent look into a budding, new generation of Ghostbusters, ended up a middling re-tread of not just tropes, but plot threads from the first movie decades ago. There's a problem with all of that: we, the audience, could just watch the (significantly better) original in that case. Why bother with a long-awaited sequel that recycles so much of the first film, when you can just stick with said film and mostly ignore this one with little consequence?
The film presents dedications to the memory of Harold Ramis, the one who played Egon Spengler (but not the person who "played" the character in the opening sequence, whose face is never shown for obvious reasons), and I feel conflicted about them. On the one hand, it is touching to give the character a great sendoff (even if the ideas behind what led up to the film's events are very questionable); on the other hand, they seem exploitative to me. There's absolutely nothing wrong with giving a text-based dedication to Harold Ramis like most films do, but this film went further. It featured a CGI-based rendition of Egon Spengler. But that wasn't Harold Ramis, obviously, but for another thing...
...this was a version of Harold Ramis that is more-or-less congruent with what most audiences remember of Egon Spengler (tall, lanky, nerdy-looking, wearing glasses, etc.) but age-appropriate. Never mind what it would mean for younger audiences. Despite the immediately-touching aspects of this on-screen digital necromancy, Harold Ramis, towards the end of his life, was markedly different physically. Take a gander:
Notice a difference? I'm not engaging in any sort of post-humous body-shaming here because that's not my intention here. Instead, why couldn't the CGI-rendition of "Harold Ramis" be – I don't know – accurate to how he was towards the end of his actual life? Given that in-universe, he obviously grew old and apart from all friends and family since the events of the second film, why couldn't he resemble the real-life Harold Ramis? I don't get why they couldn't do that instead of the idealized rendition they gave us in the film proper. I won't get into the greater ethical dilemmas this trend of digital necromancy may pose in future film releases, so I'll leave it at that.
The original members of the team didn't need to be here, since they didn't really amount to anything more than appeal to nostalgia. Ray's appearance could have been fleshed out a bit more, and better too, but he also could have been left out of the climax. These characters only serve to undermine not just the new characters, but the very principle of this film: ushering in a new generation of Ghostbusters. Call-outs are good, but to have them show up in the flesh, with their appearance amounting to nothing more than a cringe-worthy nod to a silly joke from the original film's climactic battle? I'd have passed on that.
There are genuinely fun moments in the film. It has an upbeat chase & gunner sequence that wasn't done before in the film franchise; brief (and few) sequences with Paul Rudd are always welcome; some intriguing story ideas were explored a bit, even if they went nowhere (sadly enough). There was potential for something pretty good here. If only that potential was explored rather than the end product. I'd rather have the (canonical? Not sure if it has that status anymore) 2009 videogame from Terminal Reality than this one.
It's not even all that funny, either, and the original was mostly a sex-charged comedy-horror romp that was honestly a needle-in-a-haystack lucky break for all & sundry. This was a conflicted waste of potential and time, sadly enough. We all deserved better, Harold Ramis deserved a better send-off (just the text would have been excellent), and Jason Reitman should have had full reign over the creative & directorial touches needed to give this film the proper touches to allow it to stand out. It only took about 38 years to do, you know?
C
The Good:
+ It's Ghostbusters+ Some genuinely solid moments in the film, as mentioned in the body of the review
+ Paul Rudd
+ Looks good, sounds good
+ Phoebe McKenna did a decent-enough job in the lead role
+ It's nice that Harold Ramis got a touching dedication, but...
+ Was filmed in (mostly) local areas around where I live (at time of writing)
The Bad:
- Recycles much of the original film, especially as the film drags on
- Harold Ramis' memory was...exploited in this film. Good intentions were there, sure, but "the road to hell is paved on good intentions", right?
- Why even have the classic Ghostbusters at all? They didn't do anything important or conducive to a distinct, new experience.
- Wal-Mart...Wal-Mart...Wal-Mart
- Re-uses Gozer as the main villain once again. Why? Why not Ivo Shandor, like in the 2009 videogame? He even made an appearance, only to be suddenly killed off by Gozer for no good reason.
- Not all that funny
- Plot-holes aplenty
- Why is Finn Wolfhard even here? His character barely makes sense and is just a convenient plot device.
- Give me Slimer, not...Muncher.
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