The highly positive first social media reactions to Ghostbusters: Afterlife landed last month, and with the review embargo now lifted, critics lucky enough to have caught a screening (we weren't among them) have shared their more in-depth verdicts of Jason Reitman's highly-anticipated sequel.
For the most part, the full reviews are just as positive, with many hailing Afterlife as a fitting follow-up to the iconic original and its slightly less beloved sequel. However, not everyone was won over, with some criticizing the movie for relying a little too much on nostalgia.
Most of the reviews avoid spoilers and don't discuss the returning cast members in any great detail, but it sounds like fans will be very happy with how the legendary spook-hunters are handled!
Bleeding Cool says the film has "plenty of reverence for the previous movies, but it's the new stories told with a lot of heart and good characters that really cements it as an excellent movie." Empire echoes this sentiment, concluding their 4-star review with: "While full of love for the originals, Jason Reitman’s film firmly establishes its own new generation. On the potential here, Ghostbusters still has plenty of life in it."
The trades were also impressed, with THR praising the young cast while noting that "as franchise update, origin story, coming-of-age movie, comedy and indulgent f/x extravaganza, the feature, written by the director and Gil Kenan (Monster House), hits all its marks." Deadline, meanwhile, states that director Jason Reitman "delivers the smart and fun reinvention this beloved franchise has been waiting for."
Currently sitting 88% on Rotten Tomatoes, there are a couple of splats! EW reckons Afterlife "is a stark reminder of how much of modern American culture consists of excavating the ruins of past glories," while iO9 says the film "comes so close so many times to being that perfect sequel fans have wanted for years. But when it becomes too obsessed with its past instead of its future, it loses much of that power."
There are many more reviews to come, of course, but this is certainly an encouraging start.