- Directed by Jason Reitman
- Written by Gil Kenan, Jason Reitman, Ivan Reitman
- Stars Carrie Coon, Paul Rudd, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace
- Run Time: 2 Hours, 4 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahZFCF–uRY
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This blissfully continues years after Ghostbusters 2, and it’s as if the 2016 reboot never happened. Young folks take up the helm to save the world this time, with some help from the original guys. With the young folks, it seemed like this one was geared a little more toward a younger audience, but we still thought it was entertaining. It was a worthy sequel.
Synopsis
At the Shandor Mining Company, a man drives like a maniac through town as a device in the truck beeps menacingly. He goes off the road and crashes. He then runs through the cornfield to a house and throws a switch. He’s got a ghost trap and some other “Ghostbusters” equipment, but it doesn’t work. The ghosts kill the farmer. We never get a good look at him. Credits roll.
Callie tells the landlord that she’s just inherited some money from her recently deceased father. He tells her that she’s evicted. She and her kids, Trevor and Phoebe, drive out to the farmer’s house. The house is quite the old monstrosity.
Janine comes by, she was Callie’s fathers friend. She says the place is worthless and her dead father was broke. [It’s clear by this point that the dead father was Egon, one of the original Ghostbusters.] That night, Phoebe’s chess set moves a single piece.
Callie takes the kids to school, and she meets Grooberson, the teacher, who is also a seismologist. It’s summer school, so all he does is put “Cujo” in the videotape player. Phoebe meets a kid named “Podcast” who, believe it or not, has a podcast. Grooberman talks to Phoebe about seismology. This place gets regular earthquakes, but there’s no geological reason.
Podcast takes Phoebe to a strange mountain where the mines are. One by one, the miners started killing themselves, so they had to shut the mine down. Trevor gets a job at the diner, and he’s awful at it. He tries to fix up the old Ghostbusters car, rusting in the barn.
That evening, Phoebe plays chess with an invisible opponent. We also see the ghost detector light up when that happens. She finds the device and follows the readings to a puzzle built into the floor. Inside is one of the ghost traps.
She takes the trap to school, and Grooberson knows what it is, but he thinks it’s a replica. “There hasn’t been a ghost sighting in thirty years.” Phoebe says it’s not a replica. He tells her and Podcast about the event of the original film; they’ve never heard any of this before. They decide to open it after school. That goes badly, and the ghost heads straight for the old mines. Phoebe’s grandfather was a Ghostbuster!
Podcast and Phoebe read about the Gatekeeper, Keymaster, and Gozer the Gozerian in one of the books at the house. “What did we let out?”
Trevor and his friends all go up to the mine. They see smoke and fire down in the well, and then they watch something pop out.
Back at the farm. Phoebe finds her grandfather’s secret lab and Ghostbusters uniforms, all marked “Spengler.” His ghost shows her around, all invisibly, of course. She watches the old Ghostbusters TV ads and gets a proton gun working again with the ghost’s help. She and Podcast check out a factory that had something inside making creepy noises. They find a ghost inside, but it gets away before they can trap it. Since it was eating metal pipes, they call it “Muncher.”
Grooberson and Callie go on a date, and she explains that science puts her right to sleep. She doesn’t like to talk about her ex or her father.
Trevor gets the Ghostbusters car working and takes Phoebe and Podcast to town. They hear a radio report that indicates Muncher is in town. They chase it right through town, blowing up everything they pass; it’s heading for the mountain. Finally, they manage to catch it, right in front of the mountain where Trevor saw weirdness the previous night. They are soon arrested for their in-town hijinks.
With her one phone call, she calls the number on the old Ghostbusters ad, which goes to Ray’s occult bookstore. He explains what happened with the original Ghostbusters crew. Egon had been going on and on about the end of the world, and it was too much for Ray.
Callie and Grooberson go to the police station to pick up her kids. That goes about as well as can be expected. Grooberman goes to Walmart, where he finds a baby marshmallow man who bites his finger. The store is soon crawling with the little guys, who have a great time wrecking the place. He also finds a devil dog there who chases him outside.
The kids figure out that the guy who founded the mine and the town is the same guy who built the ghost-magnet building from the first film. Then they all ride the elevator down in the long-abandoned mine where they find Gozer’s huge old temple– and a tomb. Ivo Shandor is the old guy who founded the town. Something tries to climb up out of the pit, but a bunch of proton guns keep the things down there; this is where the earthquakes keep coming from. Egon had wired the whole place to automatically keep the monsters suppressed in the hole.
Back at the farmhouse, Callie finds the ghost detector, which leads her to her father’s secret lab. The ghost shows her that he had many photos of her and didn’t abandon her by choice, which is what she always thought. Then the devil dog jumps out and gets her.
Callie is now Zuul, the Gatekeeper, and she takes off running toward the mountain. Grooberman, the Keymaster, goes to the mines and disables the proton beams, releasing whatever’s down there.
Phoebe figures out that the whole farm isn’t for growing things; it’s a giant trap. Callie and Grooberman get together at the mountain and release their inner hellhounds. Gozer climbs up out of the pit and makes short work of Ivo Shandor. Phoebe walks up and tells Gozer bad jokes; Gozer is not amused. It’s a distraction until Podcast can trap the Gatekeeper.
Callie turns back into herself and tries to tell Phoebe about the secret lab, but Phoebe knows all about that. They drive back to the farm, pursued by Gozer, and they use the Gatekeeper, in a trap, as bait. As before, the field-trap doesn’t work.
It’s all looking very grim until Ray, Peter, and Winston show up. Gozer remembers them. They shoot Gozer and cross the beams again. With the help of Egon’s ghost, the three original Ghostbusters, along with Phoebe and Trevor, activate the field trap and it pulls Gozer right in, along with all the other ghosts from town.
Ray says he listens to Podcast’s podcast. Winston wants to fix up the old car. Everyone says goodbye to Egon’s ghost, especially Callie, who has made her peace with him since he was right all along.
After the credits, we cut to Peter and Dana doing psychic tests, and she enjoys shocking him. He gets them all right, but he admits that he marked the cards. We then cut to Winston, who’s become very successful. He pays for Ray’s bookshop. He walks into the old firestation as the Hearse drives in. We see that the old containment equipment may not be entirely empty…
Commentary
Harold Ramis died in 2014, but instead of recasting him, they made the entire movie revolve around the mystery of Egon’s death. With a stand in actor and digital trickery, they gave us the illusion that Harold Ramis was there.
This was a hundred times better than the 2016 reboot, but it’s absolutely a kids’ movie. Genius-level precocious children are usually unbelievable in film, and this one’s not different. That said, McKenna Grace, as Phoebe, is quite good here. Finn Wolfhard and the other young folks were okay. The adults were all fine as well.
It was good!