Review — Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
Bustin' makes me feel alright, I guess.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire might be the best of the Ghostbusters sequels and remakes.
That’s not the high bar to clear that some might think. Ivan Reitman’s 1984 classic is one of my all-time favorite movies — it’s quite possibly the movie I’ve seen more than any other — but it succeeds despite its shaggy script, powered by a comedic ensemble, assured direction, fun effects and a killer soundtrack that make it more than the sum of its parts. Every other attempt to revisit the franchise since has sweated through the screen to recapture lightning in a bottle.
Reitman and the same cast couldn’t replicate the charm with 1989’s amiable but aimless retread, Ghostbusters II. Paul Feig and a cast of the funniest actors on the planet had a bit more success but couldn’t quite nail it in 2016. And 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife took an interesting approach by turning the series into a family adventure but it felt haunted by the spirit of the original, ultimately settling for nostalgic pandering that exhumed the 1984 movie’s plot and ended with a ghoulish CGI cameo that burned any goodwill I had left toward the series.
Frozen Empire makes some of those same mistakes. It’s still so enamored with the first film that it can’t stop tossing in visual and audio cues, repurposing even the most throwaway lines of dialogue, and inviting back major and minor characters. But for the first time in this franchise’s history, it also builds on the ideas of that first movie and starts to expand its universe, suggesting a new life for this saga if it can just give up the ghost of 1984.
After a brief prologue in which a group of firefighters encounter an icy threat — itself preceded by a Robert Frost quote, something I’m sure no one ever imagined kicking off a Ghostbusters movie — the story flashes forward to catch up with teenager Phoebe (McKenna Grace) and her brother, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard), who have moved from Oklahoma to New York following the events of the last movie to take up the family ghostbusting mantle with their mom (Carrie Coon) and their former science teacher, Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), who is supposedly in a serious relationship with their mother, even if there’s not a single moment of physical affection between them.
An out-of-control specter and some major city damage puts the new generation of Ghostbusters on the bad side of New York Mayor Walter Peck (William Atherton, returning from the first film), who relishes the opportunity to strip Phoebe of her proton pack — a setback at a time when the Ghostbusters’ 40-year-old containment grid is getting dangerously overloaded with spooks. Meanwhile, original GB Ray Stantz – who now hosts a YouTube series where he appraises potentially haunted artifacts – has just been gifted a mysterious orb that might hold a ghoul ready to bring about a chilly new ice age in New York.
Like the decrepit containment grid, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is so overstuffed that it often seems ready to explode. Screenwriters Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan’s attempts to honor the past while moving the franchise forward overload the narrative in ways that don’t always work. A treacly subplot involving Phoebe’s friendship with a teenage ghost would feel more at home in a YA novel and grinds the movie to a halt, and the film struggles to find much for Wolfhard to do aside from hunt Slimer around the firehouse, which can be fun, but serves no greater purpose. The film trots out Patton Oswalt for a scene, and it could use more of his wit; similarly, Kumail Nanjiani plays a local resident who unwittingly unleashes the supernatural threat — and he’s really funny — but his story has been shoved in between the other dozen plot threads, including Winston (Ernie Hudson) funding a top-secret ghost research facility that’s apparently staffed only by a British wiseass and kids. It keeps the movie too balance and misshapen.
But aside from the Phoebe/ghost friend subplot, none of this is bad. It’s just too much, as the movie attempts to course-correct from its predecessor’s “busting ghosts in the cornfields” premise to bring the franchise back to New York. The script’s attempts to turn the Ghostbusters into a scientific research team is a nice evolution from where the 1984 movie began, with the three Ghostbusters as grad students, and was probably something the franchise should have started exploring from the first sequel instead of starting over from scratch as it did, but here it feels a bit too tacked on.
Whereas the original cast was crammed into the final five minutes of the previous film, some of them have more to do this time around. It’s nice to see Hudson have a more prominent role as Winston; in the 40 years since the first movie, the character has evolved from a blue-collar recruit to the financial driver of the business, and Hudson has a lot of fun. Dan Aykroyd plays a central role as Ray, not too eager to retire, gets caught up in the fun of chasing cursed objects. Aykroyd has been the creative force who has long kept the franchise alive — he pushed for a legitimate Ghostbusters 3 for decades — and it’s fun to watch him geek out about supernatural arcana just like in the old days; it’s the best Aykroyd’s been in a long while. Annie Potts pops up a few times as secretary-turned-business-manager Janine, and even gets to don the jumpsuit and proton pack in the finale. Bill Murray only has about five or 10 minutes of screentime, but he makes the most of it, delivering some of the film’s funnier one-liners, and it’s great to see him go full Venkman again.
But the franchise’s hopes clearly rest on the new cast, and I assume this is where old-school fans might get into a bit of a lather. Frozen Empire might return the franchise to New York, but anyone hoping that Oswalt and Nanjiani would suit up with Rudd for a new generation will be let down. The film is clearly invested in the family at the center of the story, and Ghostbusters is now a kid-friendly franchise instead of a comedy geared toward SNL fans.
And that’s fine. While I love the deadpan slobs-vs-snobs comedy of Ghostbusters, it’s obvious that recapturing the first film’s chemistry and vibe is a perilous effort; it couldn’t be replicated with the original sequel in 1989 or with some of the funniest people in Hollywood in 2016. If they’re going to keep telling new Ghostbusters stories — and, let’s be clear, it’s not essential for them to do so — then the entire enterprise probably needs to pivot. And as someone who was once a kid with his own plastic proton pack and ghost trap, I understand that this is a franchise that works well with a younger crowd. And while some of the film’s minor new players, such as Phoebe’s best friend Podcast and Celeste O’ Connor’s Lucky, are fairly lightly sketched, the core of the ensemble is solid. Grace gets the nerdy, alienated notes right, but I like that Phoebe is also sarcastic and driven, not the brooding heroine too many of these movies give us. Wolfhard seems content just to go for easy laughs as the lazy older brother, and he’s good at that. Coon brings an intelligence and gravity that could easily be thrown away in the mom role, and if Paul Rudd is basically just playing Paul Rudd at this point, I have no problem with that. He’s probably the modern actor who could best hold his own alongside the original cast, and his enthusiasm is a welcome addition. Whereas Ghostbusters: Afterlife seem determined to pump emotion into a franchise that was best known for being flippant, Frozen Empire finds a better balance, letting the emotional stuff exist while also remembering that these movies should be fun.
Kenan takes the directorial reins from Jason Reitman, and seems much more comfortable with telling a movie at this scale. The movie might go overboard on its callbacks to the original — while Dario Marianelli might get credit for this score, at least 90% of it lifts directly from Elmer Bernsetin’s 1984 work — but Kenan makes them the texture of the film, not its reason for being. The look and sound of the proton packs and Ecto-1 are iconic, woven into the DNA of ‘80s kids, and he understands the importance of incorporating them. Even the most casual Ghostbusters fan will pick up on the countless Easter eggs being hurled at them, but this time the film has its own threat for the team to deal with, and it’s actually a pretty good one; the frost demon that’s summoned is scary, and the snow-swept (but oddly empty) New York is a striking visual; it’s certainly better than a cursed painting or trotting out devil dogs one more time.
There’s no question that Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire can’t hold a candle to Ivan Reitman’s 1984 classic, which was a perfect storm of performance and craftsmanship that worked despite itself. And I understand that many long-time franchise fans may roll their eyes at their beloved series turning into kid stuff; forgetting, of course, that they were probably kids when they first tuned into it. But it’s fun, light on its feet and, in its best moments, captures the tone of the first film fairly well. For the first time in 40 years, I can say once again that bustin’ makes me feel good.