| Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024) | |
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Rating: 6.4/10 (25,335 votes) Director: Gil Kenan Writer: Gil Kenan, Jason Reitman, Ivan Reitman Stars: Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard Runtime: 115 min Rated: PG-13 Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy Released: 22 Mar 2024 |
| Plot: When the discovery of an ancient artifact unleashes an evil force, Ghostbusters new and old must join forces to protect their home and save the world from a second ice age. | |
The Ghostbusters are back in New York again after the events of the previous film. Callie, Gary, Trevor and Phoebe have now taken residence in the old firehouse after the events of the previous film, and are using the old equipment to follow in the legacy of those before them to bust some ghosts. However, when an ancient evil that has been contained for centuries threatens to escape once more, the Ghostbusters old and new must join forces to prevent the world becoming a frozen empire of darkness.
Ghostbusters Afterlife in 2021 did a great job of blending nostalgic elements of the original film with a new cast of characters to bring audiences back into this world of proton packs and traps, introducing Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, and Mckenna Grace, whilst having short cameos by the original team. Any nostalgic nods felt inherently part of the story that was presented, driving home the heart of the film and feeling naturally inserted. By the end of that film, with the tease of the return to the firehouse, the hope was we could look forward to seeing the new family group pick up the mantle and lead the way in something fresh. Unfortunately it appears that the lesson Gil Kenan took from the reception to Afterlife was that fans want bait and nostalgia berries, resulting in the forced inclusion in this film of far too many reminders of earlier films.
Disappointingly, when we should be getting a film focussing on the new Spengler family (and Gary), they get mostly sidelined throughout whilst Akroyd’s Ray and Hudson’s Winston go around introducing even more faces to the roster. Thus screen time gets used up by Patton Oswalt who helps with research that they could have had any member of the team do anyway, but hey you gotta have cameos. We also get the introduction of Winston’s Paranormal Investigation Lab, staffed with cameos from James Acaster and others, as well as Lucky Domingo who, coincidentally, pops back in from Afterlife for, you know, reasons. The lab itself is hamfistedly introduced when the ghost storage at the firehouse is struggling, with Winston simply taking them along to this lab that he has more storage at on a whim, making you wonder why he hasn’t actually told them about it previously. Don’t get me started on the, again, forced inclusion of Podcast that adds nought to the film.
Kumail Najiani also joins the franchise asNadeem Razmaadi, whose actions in selling his grandmother’s collection are the catalyst that sets off the chain of events, and he offers some amusing moments with his typically awkward approach to interactions. But, again, we are dragged away from the core characters too much, and only Grace gets some time to grow in her part this time as she befriends a ghost, Melody, and almost starts a sub-plot looking at the ethics of busting ghosts, before the film bottles it and dangles some nostalgia for the audience instead.
It is in the nostalgia dangling that the film really undoes itself. Anytime things get potentially interesting, it wheels out another character or ghost from the first film to wave in front of you and remind you what you used to love – key phrase being “used to”. William Atherton returns as Peck, now the Mayor, taking up screen time for what is overall inconsequential to the events – even when he strips them of all their belongings, shutting down the Ghostbusters forever, five minutes later a van rocks up with, you guessed it, proton packs and traps for them. Thus the biggest issue is signposted – nothing feels consequential throughout because nothing is allowed to gather any momentum. Ideas are raised and casually discarded, just to give a scattershot slice of nostalgia.
It’s such a shame because had the cameos and nostalgia been dialled back, and more screen time be given to the woefully underserved Carrie Coon and Paul Rudd, this could have been a great new start for a new era of Ghostbusters. Finn Wolfhard gets absolutely nothing to do through this, and feels so separate from the main story at times that you wonder if he was tied into Stranger Things shooting instead (all he does is try to capture another nostalgia berry….sorry….slimer for, you know, laughs?)
In the end, Frozen Empire is visual marvelous, but vacuously empty, and a huge disappointment.
