Ghostbusters: Afterlife review – defanged retread that is lacking in spirit and laughs

Smalltown sequel takes the action away from the city that made it exciting and turns it into a sub-Spielberg kids’ fantasy adventureThe Ghostbusters franchise now gets a pointless and ill-suited sequel-iteration, co-written and directed by Jason Reitman that never quite acknowledges the tonal confusion created by introducing a new type of nice, non-bustable ghost.

In an obtuse way, this film takes the story out of the big city (where ghosts swarmed excitingly and hilariously like rats), moves it out to smalltown Oklahoma, and tries to reinvent the whole thing as a sub-Spielbergian fantasy adventure with an adorable bunch of teens and tweens in the ghostbusting forefront.It is here where original ghostbuster Dr Egon Spengler (once played by the late Harold Ramis) lived in reclusive retirement, worried about a mighty devil-spirit lurking in a nearby abandoned mine.

He has left his tumbledown mansion to his grownup daughter, hard-up single

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