Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire review.
A competent, if slow, sequel to Ghostbusters: Aftermath. Another confusing entry in the series as a whole.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
Directed by Gil Kenan
Written by Gil Kenan and Jason Reitman
Starring Mckenna Grace, Celeste O’Connor, Carrie Coon, Annie Potts, Paul Rudd, Bil Murray, Ernie Hudson and Dan Aykroyd
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Review
Ghostbusters: Afterlife struck an odd tone for a Ghostbusters revival. It was easy to see how they ended up there. Intended as a loving send off for the late Harold Ramis…a certain amount of saccharine was bound to seep in. My qualms with it have always centered around it turning nostalgia for the original into an overly sentimental, hyper-serious story. What makes sense to honor Ramis works far less as a Ghostbusters story.
Flash forward to the present and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire still can’t figure that out. The things that it is nostalgic for are played for more fun this time around. Appendage troubled Walter Peck is back to incompetently stand in our heroes’ way. The firehouse is, once again, our base of operations. Slimer is still snacking and sliming people in equal measure. These are the freebies the movie gets by moving the story back to New York City. A stop at the public library reminds us that they never actually busted that first ghost back in 1984.
The problem is that it continues to put these moments into a story played far too seriously. Yes, Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) shows up to throw around dismissive one-liners. No, it doesn’t work any better than it did three years ago. While fleeting moments between Ray (Dan Aykroyd) and Winston (Ernie Hudson) hint at a more interesting usage of the franchise’s elder statesmen…Frozen Empire works best as a direct continuation of the Spengler family’s story.
That too comes with a series of problems. Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) maintains her spot as the best character in the new series…but her storyline lacks the emotional punch of the original. The story concocts a new reason for her to feel like an outcast. It’s the A plot of the story…allowing her relationships with her mother (Carrie Coon) and Gary (Paul Rudd) to develop in a way that mostly works. Her brother Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) is shortchanged…relegated to reminding people he is now an adult repeatedly.
With three OGs (and the great Annie Potts returning as Janine), Walter Peck and the entire main cast of Afterlife in tow…there are far too many characters running around New York City. Frozen Empire even finds ways to jam Oklahoma natives Podcast (Logan Kim) and Lucky (Celeste O’Connor) into the action. Kumail Nanjiani and Patton Oswalt show up as new allies too. It’s too many mouths to feed. There’s more. Phoebe befriends a ghost (Emily Alyn Lind) and Winston has built a state-of-the-art research facility headed by Lars (James Acaster). If you are keeping count…there are FIFTEEN characters sharing the screen in Ghostbusters: New Empire. Seventeen if you include Slimer or…you know…the main villain of the piece.
It’s all very overwhelming. Large stretches of time pass where characters just disappear for a while. It’s difficult to take anything they’re going through seriously when the movie forgets about them. That doesn’t stop it from taking things too seriously when they pop back onto the screen. The moments of playful nostalgia sprinkled in become respites from tedium.
The cast is mostly game for it. McKenna Grace continues to shine. Rudd and Coon are solid. Murray shows up a bit more than he did in Afterlife…in both screen time and effort level. They’re just stuck in a franchise that isn’t sure what it wants to be. It may not be afraid of no ghosts…but it is terrified of either moving on from or committing to the past. There is no way forward while it keeps both feet firmly planted in two different worlds. What we end up with is (another) Ghostbusters movie that doesn’t feel like Ghostbusters…and can’t fully become its own thing either. There’s something here for everyone. Except those in search of a good movie.
Scare Value
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire attempts to serve far too many masters. There may end up being something for everyone here…but none of it feels important enough to matter to them. Too many characters…not enough for them to do. I am unsure who modern Ghostbusters is for. This one tries to please everyone. You already know how that ends up.
2/5
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Link
In theaters now – Fandango
