'Ghostbusters: Afterlife' - Movie Review

I was never a huge fan of the original movie(s), but the trailer for this one appealed to me so I decided to watch it. We see Callie (Carrie Coon) inheriting a run-down farm from her estranged and recently deceased father (who the audience knows was a ghost hunter, although Callie apparently doesn't know this or at the very least won't discuss it). Since she's broke, she moves to the farm in a tiny town in Oklahoma with her two children Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and the very intelligent Phoebe (Mckenna Grace). Phoebe unexpectedly finds friends in local kid "Podcast" (Logan Kim) and her summer school teacher Gary (Paul Rudd), while Trevor falls for Lucky (Celeste O'Connor). And of course once the charming cast is established, there are ghosts to be discovered and fought.

The movie has a great time with the nostalgia, referencing the previous movies. The new cast are well chosen and appealing, the script is pleasantly well written, and the whole thing is goofy fun. I particularly liked Mckenna Grace - a bit of a relief as I thought she was spectacular in "Gifted" at the age of ten or eleven, and wondered where she'd go from there.

For those more familiar with the franchise than me (I had to go look this up), Egon Spengler (Callie's father and the owner of the home they move into) was originally played by Harold Ramis. Ramis died in 2014 ... but appears to be in this film. This is the (rather successful, I might add) use of a "digital likeness" put on top of two other actors. And to me, at least, it felt like a nice tribute and oddly fitting that his appearances in the movie are all non-speaking.