Two years after its release, I finally sat down to watch Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Surprisingly, I had managed to avoid most of the spoilers, so I was able to approach it without preconceptions.

The first scene, with a convincingly vague and shadowy appearance of the late Harold Ramis as Igon Spengler, confronting a spirit of some sort alone on his rural Oklahoma dirt farm, proved to be unexpectedly touching. Despite his death before this movie was filmed, his presence is writ large in every scene.

Switch to Callie (Carrie Coon), Igon's estranged daughter, who is having a hard time making ends meet as a single mom with her 15-year-old son Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and her brainy 12-year-old daughter Phoebe (Mckenna Grace). News of her father's death sends the family -- unwillingly, but without other options -- to Igon's hardscrabble farm, which is littered with the remnants of his former life as a Ghostbuster ... something the children hadn't known about him.

There, the family meets a lot of suspicion and disdain from townsfolk who found the late Dr. Spengler both eccentric and off-putting. They do find allies, though -- Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), who is Phoebe's summer-school teacher and possibly Callie's love interest; Podcast (Logan Kim), Phoebe's quirky and credulous classmate; and Lucky (Celeste O'Connor), Trevor's cynical co-worker and (slightly older) crush.

The movie incorporates great nostalgic touches as Igon's grandchildren discover pieces of his life. Sadly, it doesn't seem like he had a very good one: He retreated from his family and friends, living in isolation and fear while preparing for the next coming of the demon Gozer. The story is at times quite poignant as the disenfranchised youngsters discover that, despite his seeming madness, their grandfather was an excellent scientist and, ultimately, a hero.

In fact, Afterlife is overall much less comical than 1984's Ghostbusters, in large part because it doesn't focus on the constant manic energy of the original cast. And, unlike the 2016 (and even sillier) reboot movie, which ignored the original film entirely, this one is very much a homage, with cameos and/or flashback footage of, besides Harold Ramis, stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts and Sigourney Weaver. (Coon and Rudd, by the way, do an excellent callback to Weaver and the much-missed Rick Moranis in one scene that, though brief, is just incredible to watch.)

Every person and prop that appears here from the 1984 classic provides a touching tribute, and the use of Elmer Bernstein's original soundtrack themes is a perfect touch.

I absolutely loved Ghostbusters when it came out, and I have rewatched it countless times over the years. (Ghostbusters II, the 1989 sequel, not so much.) I wanted to love the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot but, while it wasn't as terrible as some people say, it was ultimately just a pale imitation, rebranded with women instead of men in the title roles and with flashier CGI but with nothing new to show us. It was fine, really, but nothing about it truly justified its existence.

I wanted to love the 2021 sequel, and perhaps I waited so long to watch it because I was worried I'd be disappointed again. Not so! This movie is a worthy successor, capturing much of the original feel, blending in just the right amount of nostalgic callbacks, and setting up the franchise to move forward in ways that Ghostbusters II and the 2016 reboot never accomplished.

And wow, the love this movie showed to Harold Ramis offers the perfect mix of nostalgia and tribute. I'll admit it, his scenes got me a little misty-eyed.