REVIEW:
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire was okay. It wasn’t even in the same ballpark as the first one in this new series, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, from a few years back. That movie relaunched the whole thing, but did it with a sort of sequel that brought back the original four guys. Now, to be fair, they were mostly making cameos, but there was also the nostalgia element of that movie (literally fighting Gozer the Destroyer and her Demon Dogs, the villains from the very first movie.) None of that is in this second film. The cameos from the original cast, sure, but not a whole lot else.
It’s obvious that this movie won’t be as good as Afterlife, right from the very start. Whereas that movie took its time to explore the supernatural elements of what was happening, much like the first Ghostbusters movie did (I’ll always remember seeing those eggs slowly fly out of the carton and crack onto the counter in Dana’s apartment, in the original film,) this movie seems like its in a rush. I get it. They don’t want to repeat themselves, and start from square one all over again. Instead, they would prefer to throw us right in there, with our family of heroes chasing ghosts through New York City. They only problem is, with this series if you don’t do any setup, you have no momentum. Think about the sequel, Ghostbusters 2, and how they took their time to set things up in that movie too (Ray and Winston doing kids parties, Dana at the museum touching paintings up.) Here, in Frozen Empire, there isn’t even an attempt to keep things grounded or moving at a believable pace. And seeing the ghost chase so early actually takes us out of it. The effects are detrimental to the tone of the film.
Luckily, it does get a little better. These are fun characters, and I don’t just mean the original cast. Paul Rudd and Carrie Coon are a nice fit. So are the kids. But we’re not here for the human story. Especially not when it applies to new characters. The story of the girl, (McKenna Grace,) and how she is relegated to the sidelines because she’s a minor, even though she has been doing all kinds of Ghostbuster stuff not only throughout the first film, but also in the time since, feels pretty silly. So does the story of the friendship she strikes up with a chess playing ghost in Washington Square Park. The Kumail Nanjiani story, about how his grandmother was a Fire Master (Get it, like Key Master and Gate Keeper from the first film,) is a little better, but that one’s not especially great either.
In fact, nothing about this movie is great. The idea that this team was given the keys to the original fire house in Tribeca, from the first movies, is pretty awesome, but it was rushed at the end of the first movie, as literally a post credits scene. Instead, it could have been a whole storyline in this movie. And it actually would have been a hell of a lot better than the storylines we do get. That story, about getting the fire house back, would feature Winston a lot more. As it is, he and Bill Murray are only in this movie in tiny moments.
At the end of the day, the ghost villain isn’t very good (he’s only introduced about half way through the movie,) and neither are the storylines. This one isn’t that big on nostalgia, the same way the first movie was, and that’s a huge mistake. The one great nostalgia moment, where they go to the NY Public Library next to Bryant Park and Ray sees the ghost in the basement, from the first movie, is pretty cool. There needed to be more nostalgic bait like that, and a better focus on interesting story.