Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

Because they (Ivan Reitman's son Jason, who writes and directs the movie, and a group of producers that includes Dan Ackroyd) are trying here to make a movie that appeals nostalgically to kids of the 80s but also enthuses a new generation of millenials about the Ghostbuster franchise (after the vapid Melissa McCarthy one pretended the original didn't exist and aimed itself solely at the pre-teen market), the set up of Ghostbusters: Afterlife is necessarily laboured with the movie adopting the deliberate pacing of, say, the original Christopher Reeve Superman movie to build links between the ghostbusting action in 80s Manhattan and that in 2021 smalltown Summerville, Oklahoma where young Phoebe and her brother Trevor stumble across Ghostbuster research into ghouls called Zuul and Gozer.

★★★☆☆

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Ghostbusters (1984)

It is hard to imagine, despite decades of advances in cinema technology and the various sequels and reboots that started with the Melissa McCarthy one in 2016, that anyone is ever going to improve upon this classic 80s comedy - even rewatching it today, so many years after its initial release in 1984, it impresses with its special effects and comedy, and Bill Murray is in top form as the drily hilarious Dr Peter Venkman who, with his fellow Ghostbusters, takes on New York's growing number of paranormal problems including the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

★★★★★

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Ghostbusters (2016)

It is serviceable and on a few occasions nostalgically recalls the classic by way of cameos and great ghost effects, and it doesn't matter that the men have been replaced by women and vice versa - what matters is this is a too cartoony, childish exercise constructed without the original's connection to time and place, and has more product placement than ghosts lurking in a story about as complex as a themepark ride.

★★☆☆☆

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Ghostbusters II (1989)

Apparently not even Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, the writers, thought Ghostbusters II was a good idea - it was never going to improve upon the original - but as far as studio-driven money-grabbing sequels go, it is pretty fun: like a Lethal Weapon sequel, the cast has grown and so things are busier - Dana has a baby, for one, and there are several new characters standing between the Ghostbusters and the city mayor, and Louis Tully has been adopted into the Ghostbusters' circle, so his role of goofball demigod conduit is handed over to newcomer Peter MacNichol who plays a very Rick Moranis-ish 'Igor' assistant to the evil Vigo - when their evil plot requires a loan of Sigouney Weaver's baby, the Ghostbusters get their proton packs back on.

★★★☆☆

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