Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Ghostbuster Babies Wake The Dead

or

Who You Gonna Call? Ghost-WRITERS!

One walks into a movie with such hope. 

 

Take Ghostbusters: Afterlife (please). The director and co-writer is Jason Reitman, son of the original's director (the real-life sequel if you will). But, Jason has made some terrific movies in his own right—Thank You for Smoking, Juno, Up in the Air, Young Adult, Tully—that eclipsed the quality of his father's work and heralded an original and mature director whose film-making instincts would, at least, be interesting and, more often than not, thought-provoking and challenging.

 

What one does not expect is a work of desperation, of a studio in need of a tent-pole of a franchise, even one that has suffered in the past (except for the first one) from its own haphazardness and money grubbing, and of a director in need of a hit who doesn't want to wade in the world of mass-market spandex and not fall too far from the money-tree. I'm sure the Sony execs were crowing that they had the best of both worlds—a younger director with a track record who was close enough to the material (and its initial legacy) that he wouldn't try to re-invent their hit (as had been tried...with disastrous box-office results).

 

Is there life in Ghosbusters? Or after-life? Stay tuned.

Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon), divorced mother of two—that would be Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace)—has just been evicted from her place and she and the kids pack up everything and move for the Summer to—Summerville, Oklahoma—as her only assets are the tumble-down dirt farm, where her father, Dr. Egon Spengler—former Ghostbuster—moved and ultimately died (under mysterious circumstances). Callie has nothing but vitriol for her father—science skipping a generation—for abandoning her and her family for something having to do with his work. The house itself is a disaster, with books stacked high ("symmetrical book-stacking..." Humans DO do that, evidently), and a secret laboratory in the basement (accessible by fire-pole), and an abandoned Ecto-1 in the back-broken barn.

While Trevor tries to make friends working at the local burger drive-in, Phoebe, the science-nerd takes Summer science classes from Mr. Grooberson (Paul Rudd), who plugs a horror movie into the VHS (funding...) while he investigates the strange seismological activity happening in Oklahoma. Fracking? "Fracking annoying!" responds Callie. The humor here is mostly visual, although verbal attempts are constant, usually consisting of some sort of cynical comment that hurts.*

Eventually, everyone becomes aware that Granddad was a Ghostbuster, and shows up at the house by inhabiting inanimate objects and moving them around—chess pieces, lights, desk-drawers. Trevor gets Ecto-1 going again, despite its age and rust and oxidating gas supply. And Phoebe wins this year's "Mary Sue" award for figuring out how Egon's "unlicensed nuclear accelerator" proton pack works without any sort of guidance. "Why worry?"

Why, indeed? She catches her first ghost on her first pursuit and traps it. It results in some substantial property damage around town and she, Trevor, and their buddy "Podcast" (because...he...does a...ah, forget it) wind up in jail, with their equipment confiscated and Mom being really pissed at them for interrupting her date with Mr. Grooberson.

Eventually, it's determined that Summerville is the epicenter for another emergence of Gozer the Gozarian (who'll appear as Olivia Wilde in an uncredited cameo) as Ivo Shandor (J. K. Simmons), the designer of the building that was ground zero for "The Great Manhattan Crossrip of '84") built the town just for that purpose. Mom Callie and Mr. Grooberson become the gate-keeper and key-master for the return.

Basically, the movie is "Goonies Meets Ghosbusters" while using the same strategy as The Force Awakens by bringing back most of the elements of the original (including SPOILER ALERT: the remaining Ghostbusters) in another locale and pulling a Carrie Fisher by having the late Harold Ramis appear as the spirit of Egon, complete with Obi-Wan Kenobi blue-shimmer. The devil-dogs appear, and so do possessed Stay-Puft marshmallow men. Everybody but Rick Moranis. But, it's the same story filled to busting with call-backs, heavily encrusted with nostalgia.

The kids are alright, though. Wolfhard is a good presence, and Mckenna Grace is a highlight as young Phoebe, using the same straight-faced strategy as "Young Sheldon"'s Iain Armitage, that somehow enhances the amusement factor as when told that as key-master and gate-keeper, her Mom and Mr. Grooberson have probably "done it": "No, I just don't show my emotions like everyone else, on the inside I'm vomiting." It's not the line; it's the delivery—the singer, not the song.

One goes into these things with such hope. But, movies in a franchise need to grow not just regurgitate and please the fan-base or the investors. It's funny. They could really do some interesting things with the concept of an after-life** besides resurrecting "force-ghosts." But, "Ghostbusters" has always been a bit shallow in its intentions and this version does not intend to dig any deeper. But, then, it's not so much a movie, as it's a wake. For Ramis. And for the franchise.

 

* Phoebe wishes her Mother good night with : "Have a good night! Don't be yourself." Paul Rudd has a good line: "History is safe. Geometry is safe. Science is a safety-pin through the nipple of academia!"

 

** I had a friend who professed to be a psychic, and the most believable thing about it was he was so casual talking about it. A casual mention of ghosts and he blurted "Ah, ghosts are ASS-holes, man..."

Gifted

Bad Will, Hunting
or
♪How Do You Solve a Problem Like a Math-Whiz?♫

Marc Webb, did the very enjoyable (500) Days of Summer, a film I very much admire. He parlayed that success into a journey to Big Budget Marvel-land, where he directed the re-booted and re-webbed "Spider-man" franchise, making it "The Amazing" Spider-man (I and II), with Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. The first one worked like gang-busters, but the second one suffered from "super-villain bloat" and a commitment to the infamous "Gwen Stacy Syndrome" story-line of the comics. Whatever, the reason, the box-office fell off a bit and intended plans for an "Amazing Spider-man III" were "Green-Lit No More!"*

One of the things I've read directors say after they've done a taxing blockbuster is "Next, I want to do a simple love story with just two people..." Rarely happens. But, Webb is a sharp talent with good instincts and his first post-spider-film film is, if not terribly inspired, terrifically realized in the directorial sense, showing that, as a director, he hasn't lost his touch with casting, directing, and of the off-beat, all things proven in Gifted.

Frank Adler (Chris Evans) has a little problem. Eking out a stable living repairing boat-motors in a seaside Florida town, the former professor is trying to prepare his niece Mary (the almost too-good McKenna Grace) for her first day at school. Not that she needs it. Mary is a math savant, being home-schooled by her genius uncle. But, there's only so much he can do. He's taking care of Mary because her Mom—his sister—committed suicide. An accomplished math-theoretician herself, she succumbed to the pressure of work and home and legacy, leaving Frank as care-taker.

He's been home-schooling Mary in their trailer-park, with the added social skills of neighbor Roberta (Octavia Spencer, who is good in a role that has "Octavia Spencer" written all over it**), but he's decided to to enroll her in school to socialize with kids her own age ("This is going to be fun! You'll meet kids today you'll be able to borrow money from the rest of your life!"). As her previous playmates have been adults and her play-time consisting of stacking algorithms like they were blocks, he thinks that one so endowed is only missing one thing—a childhood. 

Her first day does not go well. What takes the other kids 30 minutes to do, she does in two. While they are coping with Dr. Seuss, she's curious about the term "ad nauseum." And where their concerns are about who's "King of the Hill," she asks her Uncle if there's a God (after his initial hedging, she annoyed: "Just tell me..."). She's a kid and a math genius, all things have an answer. It's just a matter of working it out. She is(per my favorite line from "The Simpsons") "a Spalding Gray in a Rick Dees world." And lest she become like Holly Hunter's depressed news producer in Broadcast News ("It must be nice to be the smartest person in the room—to think you're always right and everyone else is wrong." "No, it's not. It's awful!"), Frank wants to put her on another path. When school administrators bring him to protest that she should be put in an institute of higher learning, his answer is simple: "...If we separate our leaders - if we segregate them from people like you and me - you get 'congressmen. So, just dumb her down to a decent human being. Everybody wins."

But, Frank is soon visited by his mother, Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan), Mary's grandmother, who has finally tracked him down after months of searching. She holds Frank in contempt, not only for abandoning his own professorial career-path, but, also for what she sees as his stunting Mary's potential. Mom has issues—she gave up her own sterling academic career to raise Mary's Mom and she was clearly using her daughter to compensate for her arrested goals. But she also has a lawyer, and she threatens a child custody battle to take Mary away from Frank, despite her daughter's wishes.

You'd think a math scholar would come up with a better solution than simple division by court order. But, she's driven. And desperate. And a real shrew. Fortunately, she's played by Duncan who suggests the neurosis and vulnerability in the character, in order to keep audiences from throwing popcorn at the screen. She's matched by Evans, who manages to make Frank less of a super-dad "Captain America-style" as a victim of conflictions and burn-out. But, the laurels go to the kid. Grace is going to eclipse everybody else in this movie in people's memory—which may not be fair as her work was no doubt influenced by everybody. 

"He's a dude and he's a guy/And he only has one eye/
Fred, Fred, Fred/Freddy, Fred, Fred"
Fred, the Amazing One-Eyed Cat

But, it's a miracle performance in that you believe the kid could be a math genius, while also being charming enough to be a handful. Director Webb never takes things easy, never appeals to the lowest common denominator, but always puts some sand in the sugar to make things seem a bit more real than is expected. And Gifted promises that he hasn't been derailed in that regard by his studies in super-hero myth.

 And that is a gift in itself.

* Yeah, yeah. It's been re-booted with Tom Holland.

** Probably not fair, but Spencer's so good she could do this role while in a coma.  It's not much of a challenge, and doesn't present the kind of opportunities  that Spencer is capable of. I would love to see her do something beyond "proudly restrained sass."