Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Film| Cert: 12A | ★★★✩✩

Mixing saccharine nostalgia and slightly more modern ideas, Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife is what one gets when a franchise finally throws in the towel and gives its fans exactly what they’ve been waiting for all along. Written by Reitman and Gil Kenan, the film stars Stranger Things alum Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace (The Haunting of Hill House), Paul Rudd and Carrie Coon (The Leftovers).

After falling on hard times, single mother Callie (Coon) decides to move herself and her two children Trevor (Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna) to the creepy old farmhouse left to her by her recently deceased father. Callie soon catches the eye of local school teacher and seismologist Mr. Grooberson (Rudd). When things start to go bump in the night at the old farm, the children find themselves batting ghosts, monsters and all manner of unsightly creatures. Despite their best efforts, the young Ghostbusting team might soon need a more qualified helping hand when things start to get monumentally out of control.

While the 2016 reboot wasn’t exactly what the faithful had hoped for, Afterlife for its faults — and there are many — works on several levels. It manages to be both fresh, exhilarating and disarmingly nostalgic. With a premise that is more Scooby Doo than Stranger Things, there is no denying that Afterlife has oodles of charm, even if the jokes don’t always land the way they were intended to.

I found myself grinning from ear to ear through most of it and was finally won over by its silly antics and touching denouement. Above all though, Afterlife owes its likability to Paul Rudd’s ability to make any role, no matter how ludicrous, his own. He has once again done just that thanks to his usual brand of disarming charm and chaotic slapstick comedy.