Kevin Smith Reviews Ghostbusters: Afterlife “It’s Also a F-cking Goonies Movie”

Ghostbusters: Afterlife is now in theaters and while critics are mixed on the latest film in the beloved franchise, fans are loving the film both for its nostalgia and for how it brings the story to life for a new generation. Among those fans is filmmaker and pop culture fan Kevin Smith who reviewed Ghostbuster: Afterlife on a recent episode of his Fatman Beyond podcast and while Smith had substantial praise for the film but also had an interesting observation: that Ghostbuster: Afterlife is a Goonies movie.

“You know, for years everyone’s trying to do Goonies,” Smith said. “At least in the world I exist in and when I go pitch places, everyone’s trying to figure out how to do a modern-day Goonies which I guess some people feel like that’s what Stranger Things did. I don’t think so, Stranger Things seems like something very different than Goonies to me.”

But while Smith doesn’t think Stranger Things is a new Goonies, he does think that Jason Reitman pulled it off with Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

“Jason Reitman did that with Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Not only is it a Ghostbusters movie, and a very good one, by the way, but it’s also a f-cking Goonies movie. It’s a movie about kids on an adventure.”

It’s an interesting observation. Both The Goonies and the original Ghostbusters are from the same general era – Ghostbusters was released in 1984 with The Goonies following 1985 – and while the two original films don’t have much else in regard to similarities, with Ghostbusters: Afterlife following the grandchildren of one of the original Ghostbusters as they discover his legacy and its implications. If you strip The Goonies down to just the “kids on an adventure” concept, Ghostbusters: Afterlife seems like it would certainly fit that bill – though diehard fans The Goonies might have some opinions of their own.

However you view Ghostbusters: Afterlife, it certainly appears to be hitting the right mark with fans. Not only is the film (at the time of this article’s writing) sitting at a 96 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, but it’s currently number one at the domestic box office.

Directed by Jason Reitman, the son of original Ghostbusters filmmaker Ivan Reitman, the film stars Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, McKenna Grace, Paul Rudd, Bokeem Woodbine, Celeste O’Connor, and Logan Kim. The film is also expected to see the return of classic cast members such as Annie Potts, Sigourney Weaver, Ernie Hudson, Dan Aykroyd, and Bill Murray, all seemingly playing their original characters from the 1980s classics. In Ghostbusters: Afterlife, when a single mom (Coon) and her two kids (Wolfhard, Grace) arrive in a small town, they begin to discover their connection to the original ghostbusters and the secret legacy their grandfather left behind.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife is in theaters now.