The Wasteland Reviewer

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024) Written Review

There is something strange in your neighborhood (that is most likely a looming call and desire for nostalgia) …who you gonna call? Apparently ALSO The Ghostbusters. There is a growing body of work in this franchise that came from the minds of Dan Aykroyd (due to his familial ties to the occult and supernatural) and Harold Ramis. Unfortunately, Ramis is no longer with us but plenty of the original cast are still around, and they are ready to mingle with the new cast introduced in Ghostbusters: Afterlife. 

But where does the fifth entry in the cinematic Ghostbusters franchise bring our mixed crew of characters? The Spengler family has moved from the Midwest to New York City and are now the active crew of Ghostbusters with McKenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Carrie Coon, and Paul Rudd are now a semi-functional family together with the support of Ernie Hudson’s Winston as their financial backer, Dan Aykroyd’s Ray is their occult consultant, Annie Potts’ Janine is their admin support…and Bill Murray is kind of there too. There are plenty of other characters as a mix of Afterlife characters (Lucky and Podcast), new quirky comic relief in Kumail Nanjiani and Patton Oswalt, and even William Atherton is back (and he is the Mayor of New York City). But here is the biggest issue of the film…there is TOO much going on. 

What elements of the film really work from a writing perspective? Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan co-write this convoluted tale as this whole entire crew of characters must come together to stop a frozen God named Garraka who wants to destroy the world (of course). But the anchor of the film is Grace’s Phoebe. She has an arc as she struggles with being left out of the Ghostbusters action because she is a minor. Feeling isolated, she makes a new connection in a completely unexpected place. But this new budding relationship even gets caught up in the convoluted plot of Garraka’s plot which does it a disservice. Aykroyd’s Ray does get a nice bit of character work as he is mostly sidelined from the action at the beginning of the film because he is retired…but obviously doesn’t want to be. His journey in this film to get back into the swing of things is a fun one. There is some genuine heart with Gary (Rudd’s character) trying to find his place as the father figure in the Spengler and his dynamic with Phoebe evolves throughout the film. But every other character in this film feels like they are just there for either nostalgia, exposition, or comic relief. Now having three characters at the center of your film that get nice arcs is great…but when you have the whole crew of the original Ghostbusters in the climactic battle literally standing there and doing nothing, that is a problem. Over-abundance of characters is the biggest sin that this film has. 

What about the story it tells? Most of the effective elements of the film are the world building. We get to see Ghostbusters as a growing brand with a whole new team of engineers being looped in. Seeing the idea of more than just a quartet of in-field members is a cool idea and there is a lot of potential there. But since the script is trying to balance close to a half dozen different subplots, the actual conflict with Garraka feels underdeveloped for the first 90 minutes of the film. That wouldn’t be a problem with a much longer film but that only leaves around 20 minutes for the actual confrontation. Too much set-up and awkward pacing caused this film to feel quite underwhelming in the third act. You can tell from the trailers that the third act was chopped down as there were a lot more icy scenes to be seen but were missing from the final film. Too many ideas and conveniences also littered the script. There are multiple tropes that feel so obvious including a whole scene dedicated to finding another expert (because having all the super intelligent folks on the team isn’t enough) to drop some exposition on Garraka and their backstory. Oswalt certainly fit the bill of said expert and fits perfectly into the Ghostbusters crew and at least his exposition was accompanied by some solid and engaging animation (all with Oswalt’s commentary).

Are there any other elements that felt lacking? Unfortunately, the distinct lack of Reitman’s in the director’s chair was felt. Jason Reitman did a good job of capturing the same type of tone in Afterlife that his father did with the original Ghostbusters. But Kenan’s direction feels less distinct. The cinematography for a lot of the films feels flat and more fitting for a sitcom (a similar criticism of other high profile studio films). There are a couple inspired moments that invoke those mild horror elements that were present in the original film as well as in Afterlife. But overall, the direction of this film feels underwhelming. 

But why is this movie a fine one? The fun. No matter how convoluted the film feels, you get some genuine joy from sitting and watching the film. You have a whole early car chase in the Ecto-1, and it sends right back to the feeling of Ghostbusters. There is certainly plenty of humor to go around too with new additions like Nanjiani ready to bring the laughs with almost every line. Then you have Murray who basically is only here to drop one liner like only Bill Murray can. Rudd is doing Rudd and Wolfhard is up to silly shenanigans with Slimer. This film could have been a lot leaner and streamlined but at least it stuffs its runtime with fun (if it is going to overstuff it…make it fun). But the element that makes this the most worthwhile is its boldness to explore some new ideas. The dynamic between Phoebe and Melody is quite different for the franchise and it is so refreshing. This might not be the follow-up to Afterlife many people hoped for from a quality perspective but at least it does something (safely from the confines of its familiar beats).