Nesbit

The design was really good and hey you like what you like. We all like some stuff that the majority doesn’t.

JTH182

I enjoyed it, but didn't love it. I felt like the movie was over-stuffed, so in the end the battle with the big bad really suffered. It would have been better to see the Ghostbusters actually bust some ghosts. I thought Garakka was raising an army of ghosts, so where were they?

I liked the addition of Pinfield and the new lab, but I felt Podcast and especially Lucky were shoehorned into this movie. I also don't love that the entire staff of the new Ghostbusters are pretty much just one family.

story

Yeah, what if they want to go on vacation? Do they just close the business for a week?

DaveyJoe

Rudd is the surrogate for the audience who grew up watching Ghostbusters but now are adults and learning how to be parents.

Draven

Rudd is 54. I'm not sure he fits that bill.

DaveyJoe

Actors play younger/older than their age pretty regularly and Rudd looks young and has obviously taken good care of himself. Did you not get the "new-to-fatherhood" theme with his character in this movie?

Draven

Oh, I got it - I just think it was poorly executed.

Not to mention that the last thing the Ghostbusters franchise needed was a troubled teen who can't connect with her mom's boyfriend.

Nesbit

Who would have thought it needed a thinly veiled lesbian love story subplot between an underage ghostbuster and a ghost? Turned out to be some of the best parts of the movie IMO.

DaveyJoe

I liked it, younger viewers had Phoebe to relate to and folks closer to my age had Rudd. This movie felt like it was giving both generations development instead of just being another pass-the-torch reboot.

Draven

I agree with that, actually. I wish they had been balsier to be even more overt.

My issue is that I saw Ghostbusters 1984 when I was 8 and managed to relate just fine to the adult characters. Didn't need any kids at all.

Crocker Jarmen

Us kids were much cooler in 1984.

rocket1312

This was like a 2 hour collection of under-developed b stories that felt more like 3 hours. I have no idea why half of the characters were even in this other than to fulfill contractual obligations. I didn't hate myself for watching it, which is kind of how I felt watching Afterlife, but ultimately it was just a big fat pile of nothing. I didn't expect much more, but even the big "set piece" was more or less just a bunch of characters in a room looking at a monster. Phoebe had a proton pack and I guess the old guys pulled a lever? Exciting stuff. And why were they being celebrated in the end? Weren't there still like millions of escaped ghosts wreaking havoc throughout the city?

Edit: oh, and I thought it was mostly clear that Paul Rudd and Carrie Coon were married. The bit about labels was in regards to Rudd not being comfortable with being "dad". It's why he referred to himself as Phoebe's step-teacher.

Nesbit

I don’t see how not being comfortable with being called dad equates to them being married and am in the not married camp but agreed with the rest of your review 100%.

rocket1312

Because he is her step dad, but didn't want to say he was her step dad and instead called himself the step teacher. He wouldn't be a step anything, and Phoebe certainly wouldn't have called him Dad, if they weren't married.

Nesbit

I wasn’t focusing on the step part. That’s a good point.

Draven

There is literal confusion on if they are married. There are reviews that say they are and they aren’t. The Wikipedia page says Rudd is Coon’s boyfriend. But as I said earlier, if Rudd is just the boyfriend, why does she call him “dad” at the end? This movie…

Oh, one other random thing. They made a big deal about cutting down the firepole because it was so special to the Gbostbusters. I kind of liked that. And then you see they have like 3 more poles in the firehouse (since when?).

Crocker Jarmen

I took the ending to mean that she accepted him as real member of the family, deserving the title of dad, not step-teacher, or even step-dad.

I'm guessing that they aren't legally on paper married, but have been committed together for years, are married in every other sense, they just couldn't be arsed to go through a wedding and all the sense of importance that brings.

rocket1312

Are there multiple fire poles? It seemed to me like the brass thing was some reshoot and they just hoped no one would notice the pole was still intact later on. Winston also made a comment early in the movie about the firehouse being some sort of spiritual nexus or something that needed to be protected and as far as I can remember it was never brought up again.

But then it was pretty obvious to me that this movie was cut up and patched back together at some point. There's a bunch of plotty stuff from the trailers that is gone. Plus you had awkwardly edited moments like the initial tour of the aquarium where Ray isn't there but then all of a sudden in the middle of the scene he just appears. I think Venkman was also supposed to be in that scene, but was cut which made his introduction to the movie somewhat awkward as well.

Draven

IIRC, someone used a fire pole after it was cut down (which is what made me start paying attention), to which I then saw multiple poles in the firehouse in different positions.

​​​​​​​If only there was, I don’t know, one line of dialogue that could have cleared this up?

DaveyJoe

I could do without most of them but the actress that plays Phoebe has been the highlight of the last two films for me, so I'm glad she's there.

Inhumans99

I happen to have really enjoyed this film (more than Afterlife, which I liked but really have no plans to rewatch) and would see it again on home video/streaming/cable, but I totally appreciate that for some folks it was too bland, or that the ending could have been much more intense (actually, that I also agree with as the build up to the final scene was quite ominous and intense at times, so the actual final battle was a bit perfunctory for my tastes).

For all the knocks thrown at the film that it relies too much on nostalgia to give you the feels, I was still a sucker for those scenes (seeing the ghost librarian was awesome), and of course...slimer!

I actually wish that Phoebe's relationship with the ghost girl could continue in another film.

It also seemed like the OG Ghostbusters were enjoying their roles a bit and not totally phoning it in, but that might just be my opinion.

Put it this way, if my brother called/or chatted with me that his kid wanted to see the new Ghostbusters and would I like to join them I would be willing to spend some more of my hard earned money and say yes to buying a ticket.

DJariya

Just a reminder. Ernie Hudson is 78 years old.

The Cow

^^ Yeah, and it felt like he was the youngest of the old guys, but he's not.

I saw it tonight and thought it was pretty well done, even though some of the characters I could do without.

Some nitpicks and person opinions... They could have cut out everything to do with Peck, that bit of the story was not needed.

I've never found Kumail Ali Nanjiani funny in anything I've seen him in (including Silicon Valley), he was the low point for me.

Mckenna Grace was good in this one (and Afterlife), she's the only one that actually has the old-school "Ghostbuster" feel to me. Going forward, I'd get rid of the mom, Trevor, and Lucky.

RocShemp

Damn. I hope I look that good at 78. Shit, I wish I looked that good now.

JTH182

I'd still like to know what determines whether you come back as a disgusting green blob or a young hot blonde ghost?

Other than Vigo, this was the first ghost that could actually talk, right? So why didn't Egon say anything in Afterlife (besides the obvious)?

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