Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is an improvement over other recent series entries, but that’s not saying much
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. // Courtesy Sony Pictures
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is a significant step up from 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Granted, the bar was extremely low; Afterlife was a shameless cash-grab that somehow managed to make both absurd choices that didn’t fit the long-established vibes (why were we in Oklahoma?) and cram in reference after reference to the original film like so many South Park member-berries. That movie felt like an off-brand version of Ghostbusters rather than a sequel, both trying too hard to hook fans in with callbacks and not trying hard enough to develop unique ideas of its own.
Right off the bat, Frozen Empire gets to fixing a few of those problems. We’re back in New York (as is meet and right) where the Spengler-Grooberson blended family now live and work in the old fire station at the pleasure of billionaire Ghostbuster emeritus Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson). Whiz kid Phoebe (McKenna Grace) is still the brains of the operation, but gets sidelined after mayor Walter Peck (William Atherton!!) correctly notes that it’s not exactly legal for a minor to hang out the side of the Ecto-1 on a gunner seat in the middle of midtown Manhattan.
Simultaneously, Ghostbuster-turned-bookstore owner Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) and his summer social media intern Podcast (Logan Kim, returning from Afterlife) are sold a strange artifact by a hawker (Kumail Nanjiani) in search of fast cash. It turns out the artifact, which resembles a spherical version of the Hellraiser puzzle box, is mega haunted, and contains an ancient vengeful god named Garraka that kills folks by freezing them. World-threatening shenanigans ensue.
Afterlife spent a long time setting up relationships that here are blessedly more fleshed-out. Rudd’s Gary Grooberson is a nice addition to the family, and it’s fun to watch him and Carrie Coon’s Callie Spengler work out the dynamics of potential stepparenthood while fighting ghosts. The family as a whole feels much more like a cohesive team with designated roles, rather than disparate characters each chasing their own plotline.
Unfortunately, the new legacy sequel series hasn’t abandoned the “too many plots” approach entirely—there are a lot of characters here, both carried over from the previous film and added this time, and they derail the movie’s focus. Phoebe, for example, has an arc about her frustration at being left behind by her brother, mother and not-quite stepdad, eventually making friends with a ghost girl (Emily Alyn Lind, whose character is rather notably unnamed). Stantz and Podcast discover Nanjiani has latent psychic abilities and start training him. Zeddemore’s amped-up Ghostbusting HQ features a number of gizmos and assistants (including Celeste O’Connor’s Lucky, returning from Afterlife and new addition James Acaster as Lars Pinfield).
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. // Courtesy Sony Pictures
Having a main plot and a b-plot would easily be enough to sustain a movie this big, while also getting to develop the new characters beyond the vague shading they get here.
Unfortunately the script bounces around so much that even big bad Garraka becomes an afterthought until the final act, when he finally emerges to make good on the threat that’s been looming over the whole movie.
The result of this ever-growing pastiche of characters is that nobody gets the amount of attention they need, leaving it uncertain what Frozen Empire is trying to achieve. It’s still leagues more interesting than Afterlife was, thanks mainly to Rudd, Coon, Aykroyd and Acaster, who are each great fun on their own and even more so when paired with others. However, the inconsistent plotting and remaining need to cram in references and in-jokes still leaves the film feeling unfocused and scattershot.
It’s a step in the right direction, but it wouldn’t be the worst thing if Sony chose to abandon the enterprise all together.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. // Courtesy Sony Pictures
