Ghostbusted

 

Ghostbusters : Frozen Empire continues the trend of diminishing returns from Ghostbusters as a franchise. Worse, it's the first time  a 'Busters film has fallen into outright bad territory. After the classic 1984 original 1989's sequel was considered a disappointment (although it raked it in at the box office) but still had the charisma of its predecessors iconic cast. The female led reboot in 2016 was fun action comedy but didn't stand up the legendary original. In 2021 they started again with Afterlife, pitching Ghostbusters as Stranger Things in order to move things to a small town and test the water without having to bust the bank. Frozen Empire is a direct sequel to that film (and by extension the first two) but feels like little more than a corporate exercise in mud flinging to see what sticks.

We start off with a ghost chase through New York, where Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon), her kids Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) and Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd) now live in the iconic firehouse as a family of Ghostbusters. This is a pretty good way of fusing the old and the new and would have been a solid base to build the story from but unfortunately things get messy quickly with a constant assault of characters both old and new. These include but are not limited to; the return of Ghostbuster hating bureaucrat Walter Peck from the original movie, Ray Stantz, Lucky and Podcast from the previous film, Emily Alyn Linda as a possibly friendly ghost, James Acaster as a scientist, Kamail Nanjiani as the mcguffin introducer, OG receptionist Janine and Winston Zedmore as the Nick Fury of the extended Ghostbusters universe the studio desperately want to happen. With so many characters most of them are left with little to do. Nanjiani and Acaster do well with what time they have while pretty much none of the legacy cast feel like they need to be there apart from maybe Winston. As far as one goes, Phoebe Spengler is the main character. This is the sensible choice but while Mckenna Grace puts in a good performance the character spends most of the film whining and moping. Smart teenager who needs to learn to trust and appreciate the people around them is a classic story arc but when Phoebe's response to making a mistake that probably comes with a pretty high body count is to wallow in self pity she is pretty hard to get behind.

The lack of focus carries over to the story. The plot involves a mysterious brass ball that contains your standard unimaginable evil but nobody seems too perturbed by it and it's happily left on the back burner while the army of characters carry out their various side quests, such as Trevor trying to catch Slimer (remember him!), Walter Peck (remember him!) still trying to shut the Ghostbusters down thirty years later and Ray encountering the library ghost from the first movie (remember her!) that they apparently never bothered going back to deal with. Maybe they're content to leave well enough alone because they know it contains a particularly lame and stupid looking villain, even in a series not know for great antagonists. 

It would be uncharitable to say the film is a total right off. The cast are game and mostly do well with what they are given, stuff is constantly happening so even the most impatient kids will struggle to be outright bored and it may tickle the nostalgia bone for some people. Overall though, Frozen Empire aims to simultaneously recreate past glories and usher in a new era but throws too much at both to succeed in either.

5 "I understand if you hate me"'s out of 10 potential apocalypses started.