Weekend Watch: Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Psych 3: This Is Gus
A new generation of spirit-chasers and the latest silly outing from Shawn & Gus
Image Credit: Sony Pictures
Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, in which I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, a new generation busts ghosts, and a fake psychic detective is back. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite
Ghostbusters is why I wanted to become a writer. Not because it birthed in me a burning desire to write scripts – instead, the 1984 comedy classic charmed, scared, and amused eight-year-old James, leading to the production of many stories about the characters and the start of a fascination with movies. It’s partly the reason you’re even reading this column now.
I didn’t love 1989’s sequel quite as much (though it has its moments) and enjoyed but didn’t fall as hard for Paul Feig’s 2016 reboot, so you can understand why I might have been both anticipating and dreading Jason Reitman’s taking up of the Ghostbusters torch from his directing/producing father for Afterlife.
Reitman and co-writer Gil Kenan have found a way into the story that bristles with promise. Instead of plumping for another team of spook-chasers tearing around New York, they channel the real circumstances around this film and spin a yarn that speaks to family, legacy, and the burdens that both can bring. The story here is that Carrie Coon’s Callie is a broke single mother whose father has just died. She decides to move her family – Finn Wolfhard’s outgoing Trevor and Grace McKenna’s nerdy Phoebe to the small community of Summerville, Oklahoma, where her estranged dad has left her a dilapidated farmhouse on the edge of town. There, Grace and Trevor make friends (including Logan Kim’s enthusiastic Podcast – yes, that’s what he calls himself – and Celeste O’Connor’s Lucky) and discoveries. Callie’s dad, you see, was Egon Spengler, one of the founding members of the ghostbusters. She had a complicated, unhappy relationship with her since he largely abandoned his family duties to follow an obsession that will (surprise!) play into the plot.
Phoebe and Trevor find some of the artifacts he left behind, including proton packs, ghost traps, and the Ectomobile that used to ferry the team around Manhattan. While Trevor sees the car as a chance to impress Lucky and the other teens while finding some freedom, Phoebe throws herself into investigating her grandfather’s scientific tools and the strange events occurring around Summerville. This town, far from fault lines and fracking, is troubled by unusually powerful earthquakes and soon, something much spookier. In this, she has some assistance from local seismologist and summer schoolteacher Mr. Grooberson (Paul Rudd), who also takes a shine to Callie. Soon, Phoebe and the others are roaring around town, trying to stop ghosts such as Muncher from causing chaos.
That’s as far as I’ll go with the plot – to reveal much more would get into spoilers that, admittedly, the trailers have already revealed. The upside to the film is Reitman finding a pleasantly Goonies-style feel to the first act, anchored by McKenna’s nuanced performance, which evolves from a mini- Big Bang Sheldon Cooper into something more relatable, especially when you consider who Phoebe’s related to.
On the negative side, the film is so awash with nostalgia that it all starts to feel like the filmmakers walking around the set with a clipboard, checking off references to the 1984 movie in the hopes that it’ll distract from later scenes that don’t really work because they’re relying on so much foreknowledge and essentially recycling those beats. What starts as an entertaining family drama/adventure becomes a wayward cover version that tries to prove it is delivering something new but falters on important aspects. It also commits the cine-crime of hiring the likes of Carrie Coon and Paul Rudd and rarely giving them enough to chew on.
Yet as a Ghostbusters fan who watches the original annually on Halloween (and will leave it playing when it pops up on TV), I still found plenty to like about Afterlife. I’d be happy to spend more time with Phoebe, Trevor, and the gang if Reitman and co. so choose to return to this world. I’d perhaps just prefer it if they didn’t have to lean so hard on the past next time.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife is in cinemas now.
Image Credit: Peacock
If you’ve been reading this column for a while, you know how much I enjoy the antics of Shawn Spencer (James Roday Rodriguez) and Burton “Gus” Guster (Dulé Hill) on Psych. I wrote about the series as part of my roundup of cheerful shows and covered the previous TV movie in this very column.
Naturally, then, I was happy to see that the Psych team back with this third outing, This Is Gus, which they’ve somehow managed to squeeze into increasingly busy schedules. This time around, Gus has thrown himself into planning his upcoming nuptials with Jazmyn Simon’s Selene, while Shawn is investigating her background. Selene, you see, has a mysterious past and a husband out there already. Can our heroes figure out the truth, and will that lead them into danger? Well, of course it will.
That, of course, is simply the hook on which Roday Rodriguez and show creator/movie co-writer/director Steve Franks use to hang another silly adventure, the main pair riffing and trading comic barbs (and, at one moment here, blows), making up stupid names for Gus and dancing.
There’s nothing particularly challenging or groundbreaking about a Psych movie, but it’s just so enjoyable to be hanging out with these people and watching as their lives develop. Shawn is married to Juliet (Maggie Lawson), while police chief Karen Vick (Kirsten Nelson) is worrying that she’s letting her own family slip away by missing holidays together. And then there’s Carlton Lassiter (Timothy Omundson), Shawn and Gus’s formerly uptight police nemesis, who since he was attacked in the first film (to cover for Omundson’s real-life stroke), has mellowed into more of a chilled-out character – though he’ll always be “Lassie”. Kudos also to Allen Maldonado, who plays Alan Decker (I won’t reveal how he fits into the story here) and provides a great character for Shawn and Gus to play off.
This is a show that can combine jokes about A-Ha videos with Ocean’s Eleven and can spin comic gold out of even the most expositional scene. Psych is loose and funny, rambling, and ridiculous and it’s always a pleasure to have it back on screens.
Psych 3: This Is Gus is on Peacock now.