THE RANTING BRUMMIE REVIEWS: "GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE" (2021)

If there was one thing that the poorly-recieved reboot of Ghostbusters in 2016 proved, it's that we love and cherish our nostalgia and we prefer it familiar and easily recognizable. There is a reason musical acts like The Rolling Stones continue to pack arenas despite them all being well into their 70's - the fans don't show up to hear the new songs, but rather those 'oldies-but-goodies' that bring back pleasant memories. 

Writer-director Jason Reitman and co-writer Gil Kenan fully understand this psychology as they deliver what amounts to a sequel of the original Ghostbuster movie released 37 years ago (and directed by Reitman's father Ivan). Reitman is a two-time Oscar nominee for "UP IN THE AIR" (2009) and "JUNO" (2007), but it seems clear his mission here was to provide a fitting tribute to the original film, his father, and the late Harold Ramis.

The hook in this updated version is that Callie (Carrie Coon), the adult daughter of original Ghostbuster Egon Spengler (originally portrayed by the late Harold Ramis), has been evicted from her apartment. She packs up the car and her two kids, and heads to the dilapidated farm house she inherited from the father she never knew. Callie has lived her life bitter and hurt that her father never reached out, choosing instead to isolate himself in Summerville in the "middle of nowhere". 

Her kids are Trevor (Finn Wolfhard), an awkward teenager, and Phoebe (McKenna Grace), a science whiz who seems to be a near-clone of the grandfather she never met. As they adjust to a new life, Trevor swoons over local girl Lucky (Celeste O'Connor), Phoebe befriends Podcast (Logan Kim), and Callie gets closer to Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), a Seismologist "teaching" at a summer school with help from some age-inappropriate movies on VHS. 

The original blockbuster spawned sequels, re-boots, toys, animated series, video games, documentaries, and now another sequel. Many of the elements will seem familiar as the kids begin to uncover the ghostly creatures unlocked thanks to Egon's research and tools. 

As with the original, busting ghosts is fun, but it's the one-liners and crackling dialogue that make this a joyous ride from beginning to end. A battered but unbowed Ectomobile (Ecto-1) plays a key role, as do ghost traps, crossing streams, and a new generation of mini Stay-Puft Marshmallows. The real fun though, comes from the youngsters exploring their grandfather's workshop and the mysterious mountain at the edge of town, which is actually a long-abandoned mine run by the town's founder.

Acting-wise, McKenna Grace as Phoebe is fantastic, a very talented young actress who will go far, I mean she already has if you look at her back catalogue, but I firmly believe that she is here to stay. Quirky and intelligent to represent another famous Ghostbuster, she executes the mannerisms of a social outcast geek perfectly as she tries to learn how to make friends and fit into a new world.

Paul Rudd is utilized very well in this movie, his charm and appeal comes in just how well he fits into the comedic realm of the Ghostbusters universe. His big kid attitude is very welcome to the young cast members, with that sense of wonder and curiosity as he uncovers the realm of ghosts from the past. Logan Kim as Podcast was very funny and did a great job of embodying a half Corey Feldman/half Data-like character from 'The Goonies'.

Wolfhard provides a little of the awkward fun that we got in the first film. Celeste O'Connor was a fine addition as well, helping to progress Wolfhard's character to a point in this new age modelling, but there was a little bit more that could have been done with her. Carrie Coon also gets a thumbs up as the concerned mom with lots of baggage, and some meaningful character development along the way that results in a hugely emotional, but satisfying pay off.

Now, it's obvious how the original cast fit into this movie. They arrive exactly when you expect them to, and even though they're not on screen for too long in order to let the kids prove themselves worthy of taking on the mantle of the Ghostbusters, the film comes to a satisfactory, and tear-jerkingly touching finale, and was certainly the conclusion many of us fans were looking towards.

There is a Spielberg-like charm and feel to this as the movie is based in a small town instead of NYC, and perhaps with this family-friendly focus on the kids, the best comparison might again be 'The Goonies' or 'Stranger Things'. Yes, it's nostalgic, yet it still new and fresh at the same time, and we do get a look at the firehouse, the containment unit, and the familiar rendition of Ray Parker Jr's iconic theme song. 

Hang on for the mid-credit and post-credit scenes, and just remember to take this for what it is - a rollicking good time. When it's done properly, when it's done right ... bustin' really makes you feel good.

OVERALL RATING: 8/10

CHARLES & GRETA - THE KING & QUEEN OF GREEN HYPOCRISY

Oh, what a delightful spectacle we have here! Prince Charles, the man who speaks to plants, and Greta Thunberg, the Scandinavian oracle of eco-doom, have inadvertently staged a pantomime of green hypocrisy that would make even the most seasoned satirist blush with envy.

Firstly, let's consider the princely protagonist, Charles, who has been nattering on about the environment since the days when his hairline was still on speaking terms with his forehead. His green credentials, he insists, are impeccable. He talks of converting his 51-year-old Aston Martin to run on surplus white wine and whey from cheese-making, which sounds less like environmentalism and more like a recipe for a very exclusive cocktail party. And then there's the matter of solar panels and biomass boilers at his palaces - all very modern, but one suspects that the carbon emissions from maintaining royal estates might just tip the scales in the other direction. 

Greta Thunberg, our earnest young heroine, has become the poster child for climate angst. She's the Joan of Arc of our age, only instead of hearing voices, she hears the ticking of a doomsday clock. Her journey to America, eschewing the sinful airplane for a yacht, was not just a statement but a performance of such sanctimonious purity that it could have been sponsored by the Church of Scientology. The yacht, Malizia II, owned by a Rothschild no less, was meant to be a paragon of zero-carbon travel, but one wonders about the carbon footprint of the crew's return flight to Europe, not to mention the champagne corks popping in celebration of her arrival. 

Greta's message at the UN was as sharp as a Swedish winter: "How dare you!" she cried, with the righteous indignation of a teenager whose allowance has been docked. Yet, one might ponder, if her childhood was stolen by our empty words, how much of her innocence was traded for the spotlight of global activism?

The drama of their meeting is rich with irony. Here is Charles, the man who has spent a lifetime talking about the environment while living in a manner that would make even the most dedicated Greenpeace member wince. And there's Greta, whose very attendance at global summits seems to scream, "Look at me, I'm saving the planet!" - all while possibly increasing her own carbon footprint in ways that would make Al Gore’s documentary blush.

COP26 was billed as a turning point, but with Charles and Greta, it felt more like a theatrical intermission, where the audience could step outside for a cigarette, pondering if the next act would be any less absurd. Their shared stage was less about actionable change and more about the performance of concern - a pantomime where the villains are clear (all of us), the heroes are self-righteous (them), and the plot is as predictable as the British weather.

In this grand, green theatre, one must applaud the actors for their commitment to their roles, but one also hopes for a sequel where the script includes less "Blah, blah, blah" and more actual, tangible change. Because, dear readers, if history is any guide, the climate might just be the only thing not laughing at this show. 

THE RANTING BRUMMIE GOES TO THE [DIS]UNITED NATIONS

Given I'm a 40-year old, straight, white, binary Englishman with a penchant for drinking Guinness, watching Top Gear and eating steak, it's highly unlikely I would ever be invited to give a speech at the UN COP26 summit in Scotland this week in the same way Daft Punk would never be invited to play on MTV Unplugged.

However, if I did, it would probably go a little something like this ...

"Dear attendees. I am, like all of us here, a normal, bog-standard, pretty average, everyday citizen of the world. Whilst I am not the Prime Minister of the UK and have a duty to all, my primary responsibility is to my own. Fortunately we can improve the lot of the former and the latter at the same time.

The forecasts of climate science are no more accurate than our Government's recent efforts on Covid – In fact only one of the climate models gets anywhere near matching real world data and that’s not very near, predicting only half the warming we’re panicking about. So we have time to make the world economy more resilient. 

We Brits will demonstrate how this can be done, and we can lead the whole world into a brighter future based on the time-proven skills of entrepreneurship and engineering, beginning by teaching this in schools rather than letting our children think that waving placards around like windmills with the hiccups and blindly accepting backdoor communism will make a blind bit of difference.

Renewable energy is not the answer. By making fossil fuel and nuclear power stations provide expensive backups for cloudy and windless days - which we have rather a LOT of here in the UK, it forces up all energy prices and overcharges those who use most energy, the old, the poor, the sick, and those with a job. No new renewable schemes should be approved unless the operators guarantee delivery 24/7/365 at a reasonable price. We should instead right the wrongs of past agreements by imposing a windfall tax on wind and solar schemes which exactly matches their subsidies.

But what can give us the energy we need to power our factories, warm our homes, grow our food, while still being cautious about the demon carbon – if, that is, it turns out to be a demon? It must be nuclear. We should cancel all work on European Pressurised Water Reactors in the United Kingdom – given they were designed by EU committees they are as much use as Pope's testicles — but our greatest British engineering company, Rolls-Royce, is developing Small Modular Reactors. Once the design is optimised we should order SMRs in batches of four, with half of them exported as aid to nations which are energy poor.

We keep hearing from various green organisations that we are near the climate tipping point and we 'must do something now'. If these scaremongerers are right we don’t have time to wait for fusion, and if they’re wrong we don’t need to worry if we wait for it to become a viable technology.  

New technology needs time to settle down, and even though the SMR concept is not entirely new – our nuclear-powered submarines have operated for decades with no problems – we must allow for time in adapting the designs. Besides, we need reliable, cheap energy now, not in ten years’ time. Fortunately the answer lies literally beneath our feet. There are billions of cubic metres of natural gas in the Scottish Midland shale, billions in the Bowland Shale in Lancashire, and billions more in the rest of the UK.

There has been opposition to fracking for gas, some from locals but mainly from bearded, cagoule-wearing socialists, those hairy chaps and chapesses who squat around the edges of our civilisation in a bid to take us back to the Stone Age, who wish to keep us in fuel poverty because all profit is bad, yo. 

We can't address the concerns of these amateur hermits any more than we can persuade them to have a bath, but for people who might live near fracking sites the Government should mandate compensation. Any damage caused by tremors – we don't expect any but we wish to reassure worried residents – should be compensated at three times the cost of repair. Furthermore, all houses within five miles of a fracking site should receive ten years’ free supply of gas for space heating, cooking etc, or an equivalent cash payment. 

Now let’s talk about a REAL climate concern: air pollution from transportation, starting with rolling out a programme to convert all heavy goods vehicles and buses, trains etc to hybrid electrical power and/or compressed natural gas fuel. This will cut CO2 emissions from those sources by nearly half, while reducing NOx and particulate air pollution but a similar amount.

As a bridge fuel, shale gas is natural, clean, cuts our CO2 emissions and will be good for our balance of payments while we build up the SMR fleet. Finally, we should establish a think tank of both environmentalists AND climate sceptics, people with legitimately different ideas and opinions.

For too long eco-fanatics, socialists, and teenage doom goblins have acted as self-appointed climate gatekeepers. Now is the time for the issue to be properly debated in public, time to stop the hysteria, time for a difference of opinions to be allowed to speak out and allow entrepreneurs and engineers to play a greater role.

There is our roadmap to the future. The UK will travel that road alone if necessary, but we will welcome those who understand that reliable, low cost energy is vital if we are to preserve our way of life if we move carefully to a low carbon future. 

There are countries who have representatives in this room whose emissions dwarf the UK’s measly one per cent, countries whose increases every day wipe out any yearly savings we might make. I won't name them, but I can tell you they rhyme with Bina and Chindia. Let them come clean and admit that they have no intention of banning coal and oil in their power stations, then do what we are doing, travelling into a clean and low carbon future without killing our people and economies and sleepwalking into backdoor global socialism.

Now, if you will excuse me I will stop here and decline to attend the rest of this talking shop. Like all its predecessors it will fail to come to any useful conclusions, and some of us have lives to lead."