Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is a charming yet convoluted romp through the world of the Ghostbusters.
It often struggles to find a unique footing in a sea of ghostly nostalgia. For many avid fans, that won’t be a problem, but for many newcomers, the lack of focus on core characters or confused tone might leave them a little cold.
Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan return as writers, with the latter taking over the director’s chair. Kenan brings a stronger voice to the franchise after the muddied and fan-service-heavy Ghostbusters: Afterlife. While Frozen Empire doesn’t entirely escape those criticisms, it finds a far better balance between old and new and at least attempts to go in a fresh direction for the franchise.
Much of the fun is found branching from Grooberson (Paul Rudd) and the vastly underused Nadeem (Kumail Nanjiani); much of the laugh-out-loud humour this movie holds lies between them. But, like Afterlife before it, much of the runtime is focused on the foreboding villain here to freeze you to death using fear itself. This continuing focus on lore and villains, instead of the scrappy comedy that worked so well in the past, is a growing issue in these recent Ghostbusters films. Gone are the days of slamming the evil fridge closed to get more intimate with Dana Barrett. Today, that evil fridge flies open and drops a dry soliloquy of information that doesn’t culminate in much of anything.
The Spangler family returns, this time living and working as Ghostbusters in the iconic New York firehouse. Dan Aykroyd is back as Ray Stantz in a larger role than expected. Before the movie is engulfed in a sea of characters, Aykroyd is as great as ever, dropping ghost jargon and smashing possibly ethereal objects. The rest of the original 1984 film’s cast returns in smaller roles that ramp up as the film progresses before almost taking over completely in the climax. The abundance of characters becomes a real problem as it’s not long before we have eleven-plus people rearing to fight the ghostly entities.
The film’s main focus is the discovery of an ancient orb that holds the threat of worldly annihilation. This needlessly complex villain origin story takes up a majority of the runtime and never becomes more than the sum of its parts because of the immense effort it takes to get there. We have firemasters, Patton Oswalt, ice monsters and copper lining, yet it never comes together as a cohesive threat. Rather, we branch away from that plot line to follow Phoebe Spangler (Mckenna Grace) and her awkward friendship/romance with a plucky ghost named Melody (Emily Alyn Lind). These scenes mostly entail flirtatious conversations that never break away from mild banter. It feels like the film wanted to go further but changed its mind late in the game, as the relationship never truly blossoms into something more.
The confusing plots grow more confused as the film goes on, but arriving with a warm welcome in this cold New York is the hilarious Kumail Nanjiani as a sleazy homebody that’s just ulooking for an extra bit of cash to buy a new video game or knock-off Jordans. His charm brings the well-missed comedy back into the film and keeps it energetic once he’s around, even if it is fleeting. Paul Rudd, alongside the 84′ cast, also bring a fun charm when they are center screen. They haven’t missed a step, as they are as dry and comedic as ever.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is an often confused film that doesn’t know if it wants to expand the universe’s lore or just bring funny jokes to the forefront. While it’s a welcome step up from Afterlife, it still doesn’t do enough with its smorgasbord of characters or aimless plot to justify a truly engaging movie. Ghostbusters fans will find a good deal to like as there is plenty of fan service, but more importantly, more time spent in the universe. We’re catching ghosts, cracking jokes, and sliming fools. Sometimes, that’s all you really need.
Fun Fact:
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is dedicated to the late Ivan Reitman, the original director of the first two movies who passed away on February 12, 2022.
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