“Listen. I smell something.” On November 19, Ghostbusters: Afterlife was released. This isn’t a reboot because chronologically it comes after the second movie released in 1989, Ghostbusters 2. Even though this movie doesn’t take place in the busy ghost filled streets of New York, Summerville Oklahoma is a great setting. It lays out the more secluded feeling that they want you to be immersed in. Giving the franchise a new look could be good but missing the nostalgia of New York and the old firehouse plays a big role in how the movie is looked at.

The movie starts out with a family of three in their home. The mother Callie, the daughter Phoebe, and the son Trevor. We aren’t told a last name because the father was never in the picture and Callie’s dad left right after her birth. Right off the bat when we see Phoebe we see a resemblance of Egon Spengler who was played by the late Harold Ramis. We are shown a scene where the family is getting evicted from their home because they haven’t been paying rent. The only thing left in their name now is an old farmhouse in Summerville Oklahoma that was Callie’s fathers. When they get to the house, it’s very run down along with the barn alongside the house with the word “dirt’ painted on it. When they enter the house there’s a lot of call backs to the previous movies like the vertical book stacking in the living room. That’s a reference to the fist movie when Ray Stantz, Peter Vankmen, and Egon Spengler were in the New York Public Library’s basement. The score to the movie was also pretty consistent to the previous two movies which felt great giving the nostalgia feeling again. Like previously stated, even though we’re not in the familiar setting of New York City, every call back and appearance will put a huge smile on your face.

Now although the movie was great there were still some pieces that felt missing. In the storyline we don’t learn the moms first name until the last few minutes of the movie. As well as a few other characters, Trevors love interest mentions she has a boyfriend, but we don’t ever meet him. After she mentions that one time, it isn’t stated or perceived another way throughout the rest of the movie. As well as Phoebe’s new friend she makes when getting to Summerville. We never learn his real name. He says people call him Podcast and that’s what he went by through the whole movie. Another part that just felt unexplained was the fact that when Phobe, Podcast, and Trevor find all the old proton packs and traps, they know how to use it without any practice. In the first Ghostbusters, made in 1984, we see that right off the bat, they don’t know how to properly use the proton packs. It states that Trevor doesn’t know how to drive because he failed his driver’s test, but when he’s drifting around street corners it feels like he does know how to drive. All in all it was a terrific movie that won’t leave you disappointed but I just wish some of the holes to the storyline would’ve been filled in.