The youngest child of this family, Phoebe (Mckenna Grace), has a harder time finding her place. Bespectacled and introverted, she’s aware that no one even acknowledges her dry wit. At least no one alive. While she makes friends at school with another outcast who calls himself Podcast (Logan Kim) and her schlubby science teacher (Paul Rudd), she’s more interested in the unseen.
Arguably more than any “legacy sequel” we’ve seen before, the importance of heritage weighs heavily on Ghostbusters: Afterlife—even burdens it at times. This is a film from a son literally paying tribute to his father’s greatest work, and a movie from a studio attempting to course correct after their previous attempt to resurrect the Ghostbusters brand leaned too far in the other direction, treating the material as just another high-concept setup for improv skits. Well, Afterlife doesn’t make that mistake. In addition to the aforementioned ponderosity of its imagery, there are enough fawning winks and nudges to the old times here to stuff a 600-pound Twinkie. If you’ve watched the trailers, then you’re already aware of the demon dogs, walking marshmallows, and can expect other familiar monsters to make encores.
Fortunately, it mostly works because of how winning the new elements are. Unlike certain other legacy sequels which just go through the beats of their predecessors, it’s when Reitman focuses on Phoebe’s family dynamics, and introduces a distinctly more natural and younger sense of humor befitting the filmmaker of Juno, that his version of the Ghostbusters really comes into its own.
Wolfhard, who’s trekked similar terrain before in Stranger Things, thrives at playing the smartass here. He’s too young to be a Venkman yet, but he could be well on his way to a lifetime of cynicism. More winning still are Grace and Kim as the youngest Ghostbusters ever. Grace has been a favorite of Hollywood casting directors in recent years, and here she really gets the floorspace to show why with a sharp script and intelligent characterization by Reitman and Gil Kenan. Never twee or precocious, her Phoebe is always shrewdly inquisitive and has a monotone deadpan worthy of Norm MacDonald. Or Harold Ramis.
That the humor comes from the youngest players—including a scene-stealing Kim as a 10-year-old podcaster—gives new dimension to the sequences where all the old gadgets come back out… not to mention the ghosts. The goofier shtick is meanwhile left to Rudd, whose Mr. Grooberson is essentially a live-action version of Randy Marsh from South Park.
The cast is so good, and the dialogue so clever, that Reitman achieves what appears to be his real ambition: to create an Amblin-esque adventure movie in the Ghostbusters universe. It also leaves you wishing more of that adventure was truly standalone and not forced to flatly follow the path trod before. Because like the quintessential legacy sequel, The Force Awakens, Afterlife is a movie where you’ve already seen the main plot once, and it was more thrilling (and spooky) the first time.