Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
This time out bustin' makes me feel bad.
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Jason Reitman’s 2021 rebootquel “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” is actually my favorite installment of the franchise. It was funny, nostalgic and most importantly heartfelt, which makes “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” all the more disappointing.
Reitman didn’t return to direct this chapter (he did co-script and produce) handing the reins to his “Afterlife” co-writer Gil Kenan. Kenan, who also helmed “Monster House,” “City of Ember” and the ill-advised 2015 “Poltergeist” remake, has yet to make a movie that truly resonated with me and “Frozen Empire” is no exception to this trend.
The characters introduced in “Afterlife” including Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon) and her children Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (McKenna Grace) have moved from Oklahoma to New York City where they’re staying in the fire station that once housed the original Ghostbusters and have taken up the group’s mantle.
The picture opens excitingly with a chase sequence involving our crew pursuing and attempting to capture a “sewer dragon” through New York’s streets in the Ecto-1. They succeed in their aim, but not before doing considerable damage to the Big Apple. This draws the ire of dickless Mayor Walter Peck (William Atherton), who yet again wants to shut the Ghostbusters down and sidelines the underage Phoebe in the process.
Strangely, the movie’s main through line involves the relationship between the displaced Phoebe and a 16-year-old ghost girl named Melody (Emily Alyn Lind, so memorable in Mike Flanagan’s “Doctor Sleep”) who died in a tenement fire. All this queer coding doesn’t bother me in the slightest, but it certainly doesn’t feel like “Ghostbusters.”
The decision to focus primarily on Phoebe and Melody’s romance sidelines the characters played by Rudd, Coon and Wolfhard as well as returning cast members from the original series such as Atherton and Bill Murray, who both maybe have a total of 10 minutes screen time. The movie was sold mainly on the reunited rivalry between Atherton and Murray’s characters and on the idea of New York becoming a frozen wasteland in the middle of a sweltering summer. What you saw in the trailers is pretty much what you get in the movie itself. This feels less like a “Ghostbusters” flick and more like some dime a dozen YA adaptation.
In an act of “Saved by the Bell”-esque geographic finagling characters introduced in “Afterlife” – Lucky (Celeste O’Connor) and Podcast (Logan Kim) – also make the move from Oklahoma to New York. She has an internship alongside Lars (James Acaster) working for the moneyed Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson). He’s interning for Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) producing online paranormal content. Neither is as interesting or likable here as they were last time out.
This is a problem across the board. None of the characters are as appealing here as they were in prior installments. Grace is a talented young actress, but spending time with a sulky teenage version of Phoebe isn’t nearly as fun as the precocious kid iteration we met previously.
The qualitative gap between “Afterlife” and “Frozen Empire” is grander than the one between “Ghostbusters” and “Ghostbusters II.” This entry makes the franchise feel tired (Or perhaps that was just me? I did admittedly nod off for about five minutes due to an insanely busy week and the beer and a half imbibed before my screening.) and like a ghost of its former self. This time out bustin’ didn’t make me feel good.