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Ghostbusters has never had a good sequel or spin-off, so why should we start now? Frozen Empire combines the casts of 2021’s mediocre Afterlife with the ’80s’ legacy gang to battle a big, horned demon that wants to freeze New York. But the demon doesn’t show up until the last half hour. Before that, it takes ninety whole, tediously dull, god-forsaken minutes for the film’s myriad characters to figure out what’s going on. A lot could be forgiven if the film delivered in its final act, but Frozen Empire is stingy with maddeningly restrained, confining the entire climax to the Ghostbusters firehouse and robbing its main characters of agency by relying on a supporting, mystical character played by Kumail Nanjiani to save the day. Writer/director Gil Kenan and co-writer Jason Reitman should be bent over and spanked for delivering one of the worst screenplays ever written for a cash cow franchise.
Character development is minimal. McKenna Grace’s allegedly intelligent fifteen year-old character becomes so smitten with a mopey ghost lesbian (Emily Alyn Lind), she willingly splits her spirit from her body so they be together for a few minutes. It’s an action so idiotic, it ruins Grace’s character from thereon out. Finn Wolfhard has nothing to do but chase Slimer (the iconic green ghost from the original film) around a little bit. Paul Rudd whines about not knowing how step into the role of the kids’ new father. Carrie Coon sleepwalks through the movie. Meanwhile, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, and Bill Murray just kinda… well, hang around. Their energy is low, probably because they read the script.
Kenan and Reitman rely on ‘member berries’ nostalgia like no film ever, constantly bringing back bit parts and gags from the original 1984 film. Dario Marianelli’s entire score is a riff on Elmer Bernstein’s music from the original. I struggle to think of much good to say about Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. The opening ten or fifteen minutes are okay. The visual effects and sound design are good. But this movie is otherwise pretty awful — inexcusably boring and small in scale. It feels like a made-for-TV movie or direct-to-video sequel instead of a legitimate studio production.
With William Atherton, Patton Oswalt, Logan Kim, Celeste O’Connor, and James Acaster.