Ghostbusters: Afterlife Review: 5 Ups & 5 Downs

Downs...

5. It's Another Lazy, Nostalgia-Filled "Legacy Sequel"

The "legacy sequel" is all the rage these days, where a belated franchise follow-up effectively acts as a soft reboot for the series, bringing classic characters back into the fold in a supporting capacity while focusing on a new band of younger heroes to carry for the IP for another decade or two.

Like most other legacy sequels - looking at you, Jurassic World - Afterlife is jam-packed with unimaginative, on-the-nose references to the original Ghostbusters, which while occasionally amusing largely come off as desperate attempts to stimulate fans' nostalgia receptors.

The dearth of new ideas is frankly shocking - nobody was expecting a masterpiece of ingenuity, but it's painfully clear the script was shaped around the legacy of the original Ghostbusters while the contemporary characters feel like entirely secondary concerns.

The bombardment of "member berries" - both in the form of laughably unsubtle Easter eggs and the film's plot lazily mirroring the original's - feels less genuine than it does a calculated attempt to milk what people know and love for another go-around at the box office.

For anyone craving something new, it's so, so boring.