Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is the latest film in the franchise and a direct sequel to Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Photo: Columbia Pictures.
There’s a new movie … at the cinema … whatcha gonna watch? Probably not Ghostbusters: The Frozen Empire.
I apologise for that half-baked attempt at replicating the iconic bridge of the classic Ray Parker Jr song, but I feel like it is fitting. The latest film in the Ghostbusters franchise is also half-baked.
Frozen Empire is a direct sequel to the 2021 Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which follows the family of original Ghostbuster Egon Spangler, primarily his granddaughter Phoebe and their move to New York City.
Like her grandfather, Phoebe (played by Mckenna Grace) is a gifted scientist but due to her only being 15 years old, the mayor of New York has prevented her from busting ghosts. Now she can only watch as her brother, mother and Paul Rudd go on supernatural adventures in the Big Apple.
I really enjoyed Afterlife. It wasn’t perfect, but I think it found a good balance between hitting nostalgia and bringing the Ghostbusters to a new generation. Its cast of characters was fun, and it was a solid movie released at the height of the pandemic.
Unfortunately for Frozen Kingdom, the things that made Afterlife enjoyable caused it to falter. There are too many new characters and not enough of them are interesting.
According to IMDB (The Internet Movie Database), over 15 characters have over 15 minutes of screen time. That is a massive cast with way too many plotlines.
In this film alone, there are plotlines about researching ancient civilisations, helping a ghost get to the afterlife, trying to combat the mayor, a stepdad trying to get through to his kids, a guy who is learning about powers he may or may not possess, and an underground top secret ghostbusting facility.
That’s a lot of plot in a movie less than two hours long!
If they picked even three of these plotlines and properly fleshed them out, the movie would be less boring in parts and viewers would be more invested.
The movie spends three-quarters of its run time setting up all the pieces, but by the time it actually comes to resolving them all, there are only 25 minutes left. This causes an almost whiplash-like effect. It moves like slow, slow, slow, slow, BOOM, HERE’S THE FINISH!
In my opinion, we’ve already seen Ghostbusters movies about ancient evils and combating the authorities. Get rid of these threads. The focus should have switched to new things like parent relationships, which will provide emotional reliability with characters, and helping a ghost instead of trapping it, which would provide a new take on something we’ve seen in four previous films.
The comedy is also lacking. Many of the jokes feel ad-libbed, and it’s because of this that not many of them land. This is disappointing as the original was pitched as a comedy first and drama second.
There’s still a bit to like here, though. Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Paul Rudd and Carrie Coon were all excellent additions to Afterlife and are still great. Appearances from Dan Akroyd, Ernie Hudson, Bill Murray and Annie Potts are all welcome, too. The CGI is great, and the music, as always, bangs.
Unfortunately, the brilliant base cast is overshadowed by a slew of forgettable characters and too many plot threads. It’s hard to stay engaged as too many things are going on and they’re not that interesting.
I would still recommend this to fans of the franchise, but be warned, expect more of a Ghostbusters II situation than a recapturing of the original’s magic.
Ghostbusters: The Frozen Empire is showing in cinemas everywhere.
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