Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

The latest in the franchise is a forced and bland sequel

The problem with Hollywood’s current sequel system is that if a good film makes enough money, there is an immediate pressure to produce another entry, even if there aren’t any ideas. This is the case with the Ghostbusters franchise, which after being softly rebooted with the legacy sequel Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) has delivered a rote and forced new installment: Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024).

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire relocates Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon), her two children Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (McKenna Grace), and Carrie’s spritely boyfriend Gary (Paul Rudd) from their adventures in Oklahoma, to becoming the current New York City Ghostbusters, trapping haunting ghouls harassing the city. When an ancient orb appears to be manipulating and even scaring the other ghosts of the city, the Ghostbusters of today will have to team up with those of yesteryear, with Dr. Venkman (Bill Murray), Dr. Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), Winston (Ernie Hudson), and Janine (Annie Potts) joining the fray.

Gil Kenan takes on the directing reins from Jason Reitman for this film, though Reitman still collaborated on the story. Kenan brings an enthusiasm and respect for the material that nevertheless doesn’t allow him to imprint much of a consistent style or tone. Jason Reitman was able to give himself breathing space from the legacy of the franchise by distancing Afterlife both geographically, chronologically, and populating it with almost entirely new characters. This allowed him to have greater creative control and less of a checklist of things to legacy sequels should have. Frozen Empire takes none of these lessons and broadens its scale, budget, and cast getting lost in its own machinery as a result.

One of the biggest faults from Kenan’s directing is his inability to have his cast face the same tonal direction. There are clashing styles as some actors play each scene incredibly goofy (Kumail Nanjiani, Paul Rudd) while others are taking each of their lines to heart (McKenna Grace, Dan Aykroyd). Frozen Empire can’t decide whether it wants to be a complete nostalgia trip or perform world building, leaving both goals incomplete by the film’s end. There are hints of creative spurts, such as Phoebe pondering whether its cruel to be capturing ghosts, but these are used as simple plot devices and abandoned soon after.

As with any forced sequel, Frozen Empire has nothing to say. It’s going through the motions of what a story and film at this point in the franchise should do, but doing so with a cookie-cutter and factory mentality that makes it predictable and bland. Actors seem contractually obligated to be in scenes, simply because they had appeared in the previous film, while others are such shameless cameos it does a disservice to their characters.

Along with some overreliance on poorly rendered CGI, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire blurs in with the rest of the blockbuster factory belt films we’ve been receiving these last years. For such a creative and ebullient franchise to have delivered such a lackluster entry doesn’t necessarily make Frozen Empire a bad film, but it does enhance the disappointment.  

5.6/10