Archive
GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE – Dario Marianelli
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The fourth film in the ‘primary timeline’ series of Ghostbusters films that began in 1984, and the fifth Ghostbusters film overall, Frozen Empire picks up the story several years after the events of the last film, Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon), her boyfriend Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), and her children Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (McKenna Grace) have now taken up residence in the New York firehouse used by the original Ghostbusters, and are using the ghostbusting equipment to fight supernatural entities across the city. However, the Ghostbusters face several threats: New York Mayor Walter Peck (William Atherton), who has never forgiven the ghostbusters for the humiliation of him back in the 80s, continues to try to have them shut down on environmental grounds, and as a result the under-age Phoebe is barred from taking part in ghost hunts, leading to her becoming estranged from her family. Meanwhile, original ghostbuster Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) purchases a brass orb from local resident Nadeem Razmaadi (Kumail Nanjiani) for his occult books and memorabilia store, but quickly determines that the orb is actually a prison for Garraka, a malevolent god who has the ability to telepathically control ghosts, can lower temperatures to absolute zero, and can literally scare people to death. When Garraka escapes from the orb, Ray must come together with the new Ghostbusters – plus some old familiar faces – to stop him taking over the city. Read more…
GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE – Rob Simonsen
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS. IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN THE FILM, YOU MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER WAITING UNTIL AFTER YOU HAVE DONE SO TO READ IT.
Despite the critical and commercial failure of the female-led reboot in 2016, the Ghostbusters franchise that began in 1984 continues to show a surprising amount of longevity. This latest film, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, essentially ignores everything that happened in the 2016 film and is a direct sequel to 1989’s Ghostbusters II. The film stars Carrie Coon as Callie, a single mom who moves with her two precocious kids Phoebe (McKenna Grace) and Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) to a dilapidated house in rural Oklahoma following the death of her father. Phoebe meets and bonds with local high school science teacher Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), who is investigating unusual seismic activity under the town, and makes friends with a nerdy kid named Podcast (Logan Kim) who… um… makes podcasts. Eventually it is revealed that Callie’s father was Egon Spengler, one of the original ghostbusters, and that he moved to Oklahoma as the town appeared to be the epicenter of significant ghostly activity. Picking up her grandfather’s mantle, Phoebe makes some shocking discoveries of her own, and vows to continue his work and save the world. Read more…
GHOSTBUSTERS – Theodore Shapiro
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Plans for a third Ghostbusters movie have been floating around Hollywood since the 1990s, but for a variety of reasons a true continuation of the story never materialized. Incomplete screenplays, lack of money, and reluctance from the stars of the original film – Bill Murray, especially – frustrated fans for decades, and the death of original cast member Harold Ramis in 2014 seemingly put an end to the possibility. However, in early 2015, it was unexpectedly announced that a complete reboot of the franchise had been green-lit, with Paul Feig directing a screenplay by Katie Dippold, and a brand new all-female leading cast comprising Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon. That there was uproar about this is an understatement; almost from the moment the project was announced, there was a social media backlash, much of it aimed, somewhat misogynistically, at the fact that the leads were women, combined with the fact that the story completely ignored the characters and heritage of the first two films. Read more…
GHOSTBUSTERS – Elmer Bernstein
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
One of the seminal action comedies of the 1980s, Ghostbusters teamed together three of television’s greatest improvisational comedy geniuses – Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis – in a story about three failed parapsychology professors in New York who, after losing funding for their scientifically-debatable experiments, set themselves up as paranormal investigators catching and containing all manner of spectral nasties across the Big Apple. Things get a little more serious, however, when professional cellist Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) contacts the trio after having a strange experience with her refrigerator, and before long they are knee deep in a fight to save the world from an ancient Sumerian god who may be trying to bring about the apocalypse. The film co-starred Rick Moranis, Ernie Hudson and Annie Potts, and was directed by Ivan Reitman, hot from his success with the comedies Meatballs and Stripes a few years before. Read more…
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