Ghostbusters: Afterlife — Definitely worth a call

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for supernatural action and intensity

Available via: Movie theaters 

By Derrick Bang

This is just as much fun as the 1984 original.

 

But it goes deeper than that. Director Jason Reitman — who co-wrote this new film’s script with Gil Kenan — also honor that four-decades-old classic. Although we’re introduced to an entirely new set of characters, the all-important tone and balance are maintained: same snarky humor and whimsical atmosphere, along with some genuinely scary jolts and gotcha moments.

 

Following a wild, hell-for-leather chase, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard, left) Phoebe (Mckenna
Grace) and Podcast (Logan Kim) realize that something definitely is wrong inside the
ominous mountain outside their small town.

(Reitman and all concerned wisely pretend that 2016’s abysmal, gal-oriented remake never happened.)

Composer Rob Simonsen even quotes much of the late Elmer Bernstein’s score for the 1984 film, at first teasing us with occasional chordal hints, and finally — as we move into the exciting third act — unveiling Bernstein’s primary themes in their entirety. 

 

(Bearing in mind how much of Bernstein’s music is used, a highly visible co-credit for this film’s score would have been proper, rather than the tiny “original themes” acknowledgment buried deep within the voluminous end credits crawl.)

 

Considerable time has passed in this franchise’s universe, as it did in the real world. Following a spooky, suspenseful prologue, we meet single mom Callie (Carrie Coon), her 15-year-old son Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and 12-year-old daughter Phoebe (Mckenna Grace). Everything has gone wrong in poor Callie’s life, up to a sudden eviction that leaves them homeless.

 

With nowhere else to go, they drive to the tiny community of Summerville, Oklahoma, where her long-estranged father spent the final decades of his life in a ramshackle farmhouse. Callie hopes to sell the place and its contents for enough to make a fresh start, but a local Realtor (Annie Potts, fleetingly reprising her role as Janine Melnitz) gently explains that the land is worthless, and the property burdened by debt.

 

So they settle in. Reluctantly.

 

Trevor, a typical teenage boy, immediately makes a clumsy play for Lucky (Celeste O’Connor), who works at a retro, roller-skating fast-food joint. He’s obviously punching above his weight, but she finds him amusing, and tolerates his presence; he soon joins her clique of friends.

 

Callie, mindful that her curious, super-smart but socially hopeless daughter needs some sort of focus, enrolls Phoebe in the local middle school’s summer session science class. She immediately comes to the attention of Podcast (Logan Kim, utterly adorable), so named because he constantly films and interviews anybody who foolishly fails to evade him.

 

The irrepressibly cheerful Podcast is an impetuous, fearless chatterbox; Phoebe is quiet, shy and stoic. She also can’t tell a joke to save her life (a cute running gag with a terrific third-act payoff). But they’re both inquisitive and boldly (foolishly?) scientific. Naturally, they become fast friends.

 

Phoebe also catches the eye of the class teacher, Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), an affable guy with a laser-focused interest in seismology: specifically the region surrounding Summerville, which seems prone to far more than its share of earthquakes.

Toy Story 4: Shopworn

Toy Story 4 (2019) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated G, despite some scary sequences
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.21.19

The familiar faces are as welcome as longtime friends; the new characters are both adorable and — in some cases — shiveringly disturbing; the dialog remains witty and funny; the incidental encounters are amusing, clever and well-paced; the voice talent is as sharp as ever.

Bo Peep, aware of the dangers awaiting those who unwisely venture into the antique
store's main aisles, carefully leads her friends — Buzz Lightyear, Woody, Bunny, Ducky
and (on her shoulder) Giggle McDimples — behind dusty cabinets, as they try to rescue
a captured comrade.

But the driving plotline for Toy Story 4 — arguably, the reason for the film’s existence — isn’t nearly as satisfying as those of its predecessors. It feels contrived, rather than organic. The whole remains less than the sum of its well-crafted parts.

One can’t help feeling that this is a case of Slinky Dog’s tail wagging the rest of its body: a film dictated more by crass commerce than artistic justification.

2010’s Toy Story 3 gave the franchise a warm sense of closure, with now-grown Andy passing his beloved plaything companions to preschool-age Bonnie. As we’ve constantly been reminded, a toy’s noblest endeavor is to bring comfort and enchantment to an imaginative child: a mission that cannot be accomplished if tucked into a box that gets stored in an attic, like Puff the Magic Dragon sadly slipping into his cave.

Toy Story 4 similarly concludes with a different sort of torch-passing, which — depending on one’s emotional involvement with these characters — will prompt tears, bewilderment, snorts of displeasure, or a feeling of outright betrayal.

Full disclosure: I don’t approve of what scripters Andrew Stanton and Stephany Folsom — working from a story by eight (!) credited writers, including John Lasseter and Rashida Jones — have wrought.

But that comes much later.

The film begins with a prologue dating back to Andy’s era, which explains why Bo Peep (voiced by Annie Potts) was MIA in Toy Story 3. She, her three sheep — Billy, Goat and Gruff — and matching lamp were tumbled into a box with other items to be donated elsewhere, much to the dismay of Woody (Tom Hanks). Turns out he’s long nurtured a crush for Bo Peep, likely to the surprise of those who figured he and feisty Jessie (Joan Cusack) were an unspoken item.

Back in the present day, Woody is enduring insult on top of injury, since little Bonnie prefers to pin his sheriff’s badge on Jessie. Woody, in turn, has been relegated to the back reaches of a closet laden with other neglected toys: among them Melephant Brooks (Mel Brooks), Carl Reineroceros (Carl Reiner) and Chairol Burnett (Carol Burnett).

That’s a cute bit of stunt casting, but their appearances are so brief, you’ll scarcely notice.