Producers: Damian Jones and Gina Carter   Director: Tom George   Screenplay: Mark Chappell   Cast: Sam Rockwell, Saoirse Ronan, Adrien Brody, Ruth Wilson, Reece Shearsmith, Harris Dickinson, David Oyelowo, Charlie Cooper, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Pearl Chanda, Sian Clifford, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Shirley Henderson, Tim Key, Angus Wright, Lucian Msamati, Ania Marson, Jacon Fortune-Lloyd, Sian Clifford, Pippa Bennett-Warner and Paul Chahidi   Distributor: Searchlight Pictures

Grade: C+

The idea behind “See How They Run” is a clever one, but the execution of it is somewhat maladroit.  The result is a comedy funnier in expectation than delivery, while still being moderately engaging.

The script by Mark Chappell, a British sitcom writer, is a spoof of English whodunits of the Agatha Christie school, typified by “The Mousetrap,” her country-house murder mystery that opened on the West End in 1952 and has been running there continuously ever since (apart from a recent pandemic pause), becoming a London institution.  It was based on an earlier radio play titled “Three Blind Mice,” so the connection is already made clear in Chappell’s title.

But the link goes far beyond that.  The screwy plot begins with the hundredth performance of “The Mousetrap,” which is being celebrated by its money-grubbing producer Petula Spencer (Ruth Wilson) with a big party.  The bash is attended not only by the cast, headed by Richard Attenborough (Harris Dickinson) and his wife Sheila Sim (Pearl Chanda), but by the team slated to make a movie of the play, though filming cannot actually begin until the stage production closes.  They include philandering film producer John Woolf (Reece Shearsmith), arrogant screenwriter Mervyn Cocker-Smith (David Oyelowo) and blustery, blacklisted director Leo Köpernick (Adrien Brody), whose voiceover narration sets the stage for what follows.

That’s a murder at the party, of course—the victim won’t be revealed here—which naturally leads to the arrival of the police.  The chief investigator assigned by the publicity-conscious commissioner (Tim Key) is Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell, his name a tip of the hat to playwright Tom Stoppard, who wrote a wicked sendup of the whodunit genre, “The Real Inspector Hound,” in 1968); his overeager assistant is newbie Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan).  Stoppard is lazy and indifferent, Stalker energetic and punctilious.

The investigation centers on a mysterious man seen on the night of the murder by a theatre usher named Dennis (Charlie Cooper), and it’s marked by interrogations of the various suspects, flashbacks upon flashbacks illustrating their testimony, and, of course, more homicides.  Everything finally winds up at the isolated country of Dame Agatha (Shirley Henderson) and her husband, cheery archaeologist Max Mallowan (Lucian Msamati, in an example of color-blind casting), where the survivors congregate and the identity of the killer, as well as the motive behind the murders, are revealed.  (While not precisely duplicating the surprise ending of the play, it certainly comes close, as well as referring back to the case that inspired Christie in the first place.)   A final joke recalls an alternative ending Köpernick had proposed for his movie in order to make it more exciting, which other characters had rejected as entirely unsuitable to the genre.

“See How They Run” is decked out in vibrant, if theatrical 1953 period detail by production designer Amanda McArthur and costumer Odile Dicks-Mireaux, and cinematographer James D. Ramsay sets off their work nicely.  But while Chappell has come up with a cunning setup and a few good jokes, his work lacks the consistent keenness a spoof like this should have, and George’s direction isn’t as sharp as it should be; there’s a lackadaisical quality to too many sequences, and the tempos are slightly off.  Matters aren’t helped by the editing of Gary Dollner and Peter Lambert, which adds to the feeling of slackness except when they gussy things up with devices like multi-split screens.  Daniel Pemberton tries to add some energy with a jazzily upbeat score, but it often comes over as overbearing.

All of which leaves a lot up to the cast, who respond with performances that are, predictably for this kind of romp, egregiously over-the-top (Brody and Oyelowo most pronouncedly).  Those coming off best are Ronan and Rockwell, the former bringing flustered verve to the intense but fidgety constable, with her obsession about note-taking and the latter, though not ideally cast in a part that would have fitted an actual Brit better, providing fairly good counterpoint to her as the world-weary cop stuck in burnout mode.  Henderson shows up in the end to go wild as the dotty author.

“See How They Run” is amiable enough, but will certainly not enjoy the longevity of the play it’s sending up.  Of course, to tell the truth “The Mousetrap” is no great shakes either, despite its astronomical success in the West End. 

Producer: Ivan Reitman   Director: Jason Reitman   Screenplay: Gil Kenan and Jason Reitman   Cast: Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Paul Rudd, Logan Kim, Celeste O’Connor, Bokeem Woodbine, Tracy Letts, Oliver Cooper, Marlon Kazadi, Sydney Mae Diaz, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Harold Ramis, Annie Potts and Sigourney Weaver    Distributor: Sony/Columbia Pictures

Grade: C+

As a product of 1980s nostalgia, Jason Reitman’s sequel to his father Ivan’s 1984 comic sci-fi blockbuster is almost perfect.  Sweeping aside any reference other sequels, reboots and spin-offs, “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” not only resurrects the mythology and bric-a-brac of the original but resituates it all in a supposedly contemporary America that’s actually more reflective of the world of “ET” or “The Goonies,” at one point even tossing in a rambunctious “Gremlins”-like sequence, redone in “Ghostbusters” mode, for good measure.  Even Bob Simonsen’s score sounds as though it had been composed for an Amblin production of the time.  The result is a superior act of mimicry; unfortunately, it’s less engaging as a stand-alone entertainment.

The set-up, which takes up pretty much half the picture, starts with the death of one of the original Ghostbusters—the late Harold Ramis’ Egon Spengler—at his remote, ramshackle house somewhere in desolate Oklahoma.  Later we’ll be informed that he’d repaired there with most of the original gang’s equipment, arguing to his unbelieving partners that it would be the site of the next supernatural outbreak and breaking up the business in the process. 

His demise, after decades of living an eccentric life preparing for the ghostly apocalypse, turns the place over to his divorced, broke and long-estranged daughter Callie (Carrie Coon), who arrives with her children, teen Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and nerdy but brilliant daughter Phoebe (Mckenna Grace).  It doesn’t take long for spectral phenomena to intrude, and Phoebe and Trevor will quickly get involved in them, bringing along their new friends, Trevor’s crush Lucky (Celeste O’Connor) and Phoebe’s plucky classmate Podcast (Logan Kim). 

Phoebe’s goofy teacher Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd) gets drawn into the proceedings too, not merely as part of a ghost-hunting posse but as a romantic interest for Callie.  But while they eventually play roles in the big effects-laden finale, the adults who really matter are blasts from the past, most in corporeal form but one in posthumous garb, literally and figuratively.  As a result the last act allows for plenty of sentimental family re-building along with the hard-fought defeat of an old foe from the original movie, as well as coda after coda playing on fans’ desire to reengage with their favorite characters of yore.  (Those interested in such stuff—along with a teaser for a possible sequel—are advised to remain in their seats for all the closing credits, down to the final blackout.)

You have to admire how Reitman and his co-writer Gil Kenan have constructed their film as both a homage to the original and an evocation of eighties cinematic sensibilities for boomers, as well as a piece that can appeal to younger viewers enamored of contemporary hits like “Stranger Things,” comic characters like the Minions and “Goosebumps”-style juvie-oriented scare shows.  But cleverness of assembly has to be supplemented with some genuine wit and amusement, and it’s in that department that “Afterlife” falls short.

The first hour rather lumbers along.  Coon is too strident as the put-upon mom, and though Grace makes Phoebe precocious without being obnoxious, Wolfhard isn’t given much to work with in the way of characterization besides being a kid mooning over a pretty girl.  The winner overall is Kim, a guaranteed crowdpleaser as garrulous, wide-eyed Podcast, though Rudd brings his patented air of genially bemused slackerdom to Grooberson, even if it’s impossible to believe that the school board even in such a backwater would tolerate a teacher who literally did nothing but screen old VHS movies for his classes.  There are some easy laughs scattered throughout, but the writing is more expository and less mirthful than you’d hope.

When the picture shifts into its second half, action and effects come to dominate to ever-diminishing returns even when some old favorites show up to help.  The potentially end-of-days denouement is busy but familiar, and the schmaltzy finale featuring back-from-the-dead technology drags on much too long.  Yet one still senses that other parts of the plot have been trimmed to ribbons by Reitman and editors Dana E. Glauberman and Nathan Orloff.  Why else would solid actors like Bokeem Woodbine (as Lucky’s sheriff father) and Tracy Letts (as a local shopowner) have been hired and then relegated to what are little more than cameos?  Otherwise the technical side of things—François Audouy’s production design (which fills Egon’s house with tons of junk, as well as fashioning a colorful run-down small town and abandoned mine) is excellent, as is Eric Steelberg’s glistening cinematography.  And the deliberately cheesy visual effects supervised by Alessandro Ongaro and Sheena Duggal have a comfortably old-fashioned feel.

In terms of surface elements, “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” succeeds at what it obviously set out to do, and for many that will be enough; its evocation of the eighties and employment of contemporary staples   may even prove sufficient in sparking another installment of the venerable franchise.  The makers haven’t quite hit the mark, though in putting funny new flesh onto the old bones.  The result is a very good copy with too little inside.