Movie Review: Ghostbusters: Afterlife

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A mediocre addition to “Ghostbusters” franchise, filled with lifeless new characters, and almost two hours worth of fan service, that occasionally hits its mark. The plot of the film is shockingly similar to the first “Ghostbusters,” albeit the narrative is pushed by characters that are learning about family secrets that connect the present to the past. The main characters are unexpectedly bland. Paul Rudd, who’s normally a show-stealer, is very subdued here, and ultimately adds very little to the story. Carrie Coon’s character is there for almost no other reason than to have an adult there to bring the kids into the story. (And along with Rudd, fill in a few slots to parallel the first film.) Finn Wolfhard is also wasted, as he initially seems interesting; only to quickly fall back to being a supporting character. Logan Kim as Podcast is a mixed-bag. While his quirkiness works a lot of the time, other times he doesn’t feel like a real person. (Not to mention as the film goes on it becomes clear that he’s just a rip-off of Ray Stanz.) Celeste O’Conner’s character of Lucky never quite works either. She starts off as a love interest, but has no real chemistry with Wolfhard, and never feels like she should be part of the action as the movie hits the third act. The only standout is McKenna Grace’s Phoebe. She does all the heavy-lifting with the acting, and makes a character that doesn’t show a lot of emotion endearing to the audience. There’s an overabundance of fan service in this film. Some of the nods work perfectly, while other’s just hit the audience over the head with the blatant references. (Seems like almost every key-piece of dialog from the first film is worked-in somewhere, and usually in the mostly unsubtle way possible.) The comedy is generally flat, and there’s really not many jokes overall. The film’s climax lands the only emotional punch of the film, and most of that is due to the real-life passing of Harold Ramis. The movie ends somewhat abruptly, and then adds both a mid-credits and a post-credits scene that aren’t worth sticking around for.

** out of *****

Video Game Review: Metroid Dread

**This review may contain minor gameplay SPOILERS***

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Samus Aran returns in “Metroid Dread” for a brand new adventure, that for better or worse feels like all her other adventures.

The Metroid series dips back into its side-scrolling roots and offers very little in terms of improving on the classic formula. Aside from some technical advancements, this feels like it a game that should’ve been released right after “Super Metroid.” (In fact, this felt more like something that would’ve been released on a handheld system, and it turns out it was originally conceived for the DS.) The gameplay is solid for what it is, but as expected there’s a ton of backtracking involved in completing the game…and even more for players trying to get all the upgrades. The plot is paper-thin, and small updates are dished-out periodically.

The game itself looks pretty polished, with solid level and creature designs. The layout is generally straight-forward, and advancing through the main part of the game isn’t too complicated. The most difficult challenge is the newest addition to the franchise: The EMMIs. These practically indestructible robots will hunt you relentlessly through their patrol area and can only be avoided and not killed. (Although at a certain point, you do gain the ability to defeat them one at a time in a convoluted fashion.)

While the mini-boss fights tend to get repetitive, the main bosses are all unique challenges. They can be frustrating at time as it takes a ton of damage to take them out, while they can kill you with a few good hits. There’s a cool game mechanic that allows you to counter certain attacks. This can be used on most enemies, and the bosses all have it least one attack that can be countered to set them up for massive damage.

There isn’t much replay value, unless you just want to collect all the upgrades. There’s no reward for getting 100%, so it’s more for bragging rights. (Some of the upgrades can be tricky to collect, especially the ones that take a complex combination of Speed Boosts and Spinesharks.)

Overall, “Metroid Dread” is a fun throwback, with challenging and unique boss battles. The repeated backtracking can get frustrating, and Samus is almost too overpowered later in the game after all the suit upgrades are unlocked.

**1/2

TV Review: Doom Patrol (Season 3)

**This review contains some spoilers**

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After the previous season ended abruptly, “Doom Patrol” returns. And after quickly and awkwardly wrapping up the major loose ends, show returns to is gloriously weird form.

The final episode of season 2 ended with a major cliffhanger. However, the plan was to wrap things up in the next episode. But due to production shutting down because of COVID, that next episode ended up becoming the season 3 premiere. I’m not sure how this episode was originally supposed to play out, but the entire thing felt rushed and anticlimactic. This season’s plot takes a few episodes to get going, and even then it lacks focus, but the trip is more fun than the destination. The show’s trademark mixture of bizarre and wacky moments, combined with some genuinely great and sincere character moments, continue to make it the most unique superhero show. While it didn’t quite recapture the magic of the first season, things felt more natural as opposed to last season’s attempts at weirdness for weirdness sake. The biggest flaw is that this is the first season without a big bad or any real build up to an endgame. And also, half the characters fail to have a solid resolution to their arcs.

Rita probably has the strangest arc, and a lot of ends up revolving around time-travel. The predestination paradox was a nice twist, and we got a slightly darker take on her character before she appears to have finally become a superhero. Jane also had a pretty strong story arc, as Kay begins to assert herself and peak into the real world. But, just as that plot starts to gel, it takes an odd turn that leaves almost everything unresolved. While we essentially got more of the same from Cliff, there were some strong emotional beats as we finally dig into what truly makes him tick. Even though he did seem to turn a corner, it was too late in the season to see if he’s ready to change. Larry seemed to be on a good path to begin with, so it was weird that he took almost the entire season to basically end up where he started. And it was also too late to see if there’s any lasting change in his status quo. Cyborg probably had the biggest mixed-bag of a character arc. His relationships with his ex-girlfriend and his father started to take a step forward before suddenly taking U-turns, and even though he finally got what he wanted, it leaves him almost useless as far as the team goes. Dorothy and The Chief are both dropped pretty early on (although they find some creative ways to keep Niles around for a bit even though he died last season), but then we are introduced to a new cast member with the character of Madame Rogue. Partially because the character has amnesia, and partially because she’s overly-eccentric, it takes a long time for her to feel like she was a part of the show. Once we see how she was in the past, and we see how she went wrong, she feels like a real character. While the redemption arc doesn’t feel completely earned, it works for the most part.

Overall, the show still looks pretty good. There’s some great design work, and some pretty trippy sequences that help keep things feeling fresh. The special effect range from looking great to occasionally looking terrible, but in general things tend to look pretty good.

“Doom Patrol” returns with its third season, and after awkwardly wrapping up last season’s cliffhanger and getting off to a slow start, the show returns to form by delivering bizarre people and places, while still giving us misfit characters that we care about. The lack of any real big bad or disaster that needs averting hurts things a bit, as does some of the unresolved character arcs.

***1/2 out of *****