Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire 2024

TL;DR: On my way out of the theater I saw a dad talking to his 6/7 year-old son: "Which one did you like better? The one we watched this morning at home [the original "Ghostbusters"] or this one?" The boy replied without hesitation: "I liked the one at home more."

An exemplary example of corporate studio cowardice, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is an unbalanced morass shaped into the form of a movie that only vaguely resembles the original. Most frustrating: Even though it's a confounding pastiche, buried underneath the cringe-worthy fan service, vapid dialogue, absurd plot holes, and pointless characters there were glimpses of a film that could have stood up to the 1984 classic, but if this movie shows us anything, it's that studios today would never, ever greenlight something as original and visionary as Ivan Reitman's masterpiece.

Instead of a comedy with sprinklings of sci-fi, horror, and suspense, this Ghostbusters feels like a bunch of scenes from each those different genres shoehorned together into something that could appeal to little kids while tugging at the nostalgic heartstrings of their parents. The result is cynical dreck. Silly sight gags bump up against cheap jump scares which transition into gross out humor. Instead of trying to build something unique, something with a singular vision, they took the genre classifications of the original and inserted elements of each one. It's paint-by-numbers movie making... and it stinks.

Mckenna Grace is the heart of the story, and her Phoebe Spengler is the only character who goes through a meaningful story arc. (With the possible exception of Paul Rudd's Gary, but his story gets so little screen time that it's all but disqualifying.) She actually gives a pretty good performance, and the filmmakers could have used her journey to explore lots of ideas- things like the nature of reality and the coherence of the soul. There was even a chance to center a queer character in a touching way, but nothing goes beyond heavy inference, or it is explained away with technobabble. And as any Star Trek fan will attest, when technobabble is used as an emotional escape hatch instead of a plot device, everything around it crumbles.

Even the villain was a wasted opportunity. The O.G. Ghostbusters villain, Gozer, was a Sumerian god. This new one is also a god of the same era. That's a rich vein to explore. Are the Ghostbusters modern incarnations of ancient warriors who helped rid the world of transdimensional beings in the earliest days of civilization? It's an idea that gets a fleeting mention (though only in relation to a secondary character), but, like all the other big ideas, is never explored. Instead of world-building we get a revisit to the New York Public Library and a meaningless bit of fan service.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife was a promising, if flawed, kick-start of the franchise. I'd hoped that with a return to New York and more involvement by one of the original's writers we'd get something at least marginally as entertaining as the first two of the series. I guess that I'll just keep on hoping.

Lets be real, "Who elese Ya gonna Call'

Back from seeing this today, I wasn't disappointed, lot's of humor that had me and my friend laughing, great little story and a new imposing villain.

In short this offers a faithful adaption to the franchise (Lest we forget a certain film) the OG cast are all back in what I can only describe as fun filled spooky action movie for the whole family to enjoy. You can really see the inspiration from the real ghostbusters coming into play here, being a more full on ghostbusters movie than afterlife.

I think the fans of the franchise will warm to this one (wink) as it does everything right in their, (my) eyes, while keeping it open and entertaining to newcomers. Pretty much like the sonic movies, take the family have a great time with it, which is what we have here. Despite initial critical reception, I know it's not Rachel Zegler proclaiming a timeless love story is weird, or a new shark-nado adaptation or even an African American led cast with a lord of the rings storyline guys but come on, this is at a the base level a good film, there's no arguing that.

There were some things that I could critique like the Phoebe randomly going to the park and meeting up with the ghost girl as you do for example.

the lore is also well fermented, with Ray now doing a show where people bring possessed or strange objects for him to detect any ethereal prescience's, which is something I can see him doing, while Winston handles the business side of things. We also have Peter being his ever usual self, and Janine suiting up with her own proton handheld.

Very much looking forward to a sequel, and where they can go now that the Gozerian era has ended and what new villains they can bring into the fray, the sky is the limit really, even if the OG cast do only appear for shorter stints.

Well that was, disappointing.

I felt like the previous movie got the nostalgia out of the way and linked the original movies to what would be a new story and lineage going forward.

This movie was like the writers were A-B testing throughout and only use 80’s Ghostbusters ultra-hardcore fans for said testing, so only got reactions to any references, lines, or scenes taken DIRECTLY from the original movies. Whether their inclusion makes sense or not.

So Frozen Empire was just callbacks and references and in-jokes and … somehow in the background a plot took place. But said plot was only a minor feature of the movie. The MAIN thing was the references and memes!

If that’s what you’re watching it for, you’ll love it. If you want a movie that can actually do its own thing, it’s very meh.

Or if you want my feelings as an analogy …

I felt the previous movie did the nostalgia trip perfectly, and was building a bridge for and to something new that could appeal to a new generation of kids and ghostbusters fans.

This one they’re just trying to go back and forth over said bridge as many times as they possibly can until it collapses. Possibly enough to cause it to collapse.

Could have been great but it's a bit of a miss.

They went the Star Wars way. Way too much stuff that is more a remake spliced with fan service than a real new story. It really echoes #2 like the previous one echoed #1, more in a cheap ass way than a real homage.

There are good ideas, it starts with interesting stuff. Ray's job and podcast for instance. And Winston's. They kept Murray's presence to a minimum, which is understandable, still glad the character was here.

The character of Nadeem is excellent and probably the best part of the movie.

The biggest flaw, something I really hate in movies, is that the whole plot relies on a character being so incredibly stupid that it breaks suspension of disbelief. This is painful to watch. It hurts even more because before that it was actually building something, we were slowly discovering and learning stuff about the big bad, and there were so many good ways it could have evolved. And cherry on top, this is the smartest character, whose IQ is probably higher than the sum of her whole family's.

I get it, she's smart, but a bit autistic and doesn't do well with people but come on ! Put herself in an machine that will literally kill her for a while. That is untested. That is not designed for that (would normally suck her into a trap, and definitely not wake her up). Just to be a ghost for a while ? If she could modify the machine's behaviour that much on a whim, she probably could reverse it in a way to give the ghost a body/object to possess, which would have made more sense.
Worse: she's not even tricked into it. It all comes from her, not even sure she's nudged a bit or that Melody actually tries anything.
Worse: Big bad can control all ghosts, and yet, it somehow all relies on a not so smart teenage ghost willingly helping by managing to trick a real genius into doing something awfully stupid. Are you fucking kidding me ?

And even the result is stupid. Making her ghost speak also makes her body speak ?

It is so bad that it's probably the only thing I'll remember about this movie (well no, probably Nanjiani to, he was really good). It was actually good before that.

Random other thoughts:
How come Trevor basically don't exist in the whole plot ?
Why do all the terminals look like they're 50 years old ?

Nice effects and there's a real big bad guy, and yet, it kinda feels like they're having a little neighbourhood fight in their small own, like in the previous one, instead of being in New York. Originals felt more like they had an actual impact at city level.

The "let's all hold the ghost gun together like it's gonna change something" is so dumb. I get the trope they're trying to channel here, but it's just so stupid and fails miserably.

The thing that made the original movies stand out was that it was 3/4 guys in their mid to late thirties, being immature, raunchy and trying to grow up, and despite being professors none of them had found their path in life and seemed to be teetering on the edge of being out work/homeless this led to a comedy despite the rating that was more adult themed.

The first film in the reboot was fine to link things from the past to the present and to find a way to pay homage to Harold Ramis, but the fail has been to then continue on from it with the idea that untrained adults and kids can simply just become Ghostbusters as it has ruined the idea that only people as intelligent with expert knowledge in their fields as the original 3/4 would be capable of doing the job they do.

All of the original ghostbusters except Winston were professors, which at the very least gave the illusion that to be a ghost buster you had to have a certain level of expertise and understanding in the paranormal, engineering, science etc... and that not just anybody could be a ghostbuster. This then set the story up as these men being irreplaceable hence the mayor having to let them out to save the day as they were almost superheroes... Yes Louis suited up in the final fight of the second movie, but we can forget about that as it was a couple of mins then forgotten about.

But with the new team being made up of a mom, a teacher, a male teen, His love interest teen female, another kid that is into making blogs, and even Janine all able to seemingly just become a ghostbuster despite knowing nothing about what they are dealing with this has then shattered that illusion.

The main young girl was the saving grace as she is highly intelligent and capable of upgrading the equipment and also has better than average knowledge of P.A.

Along with the main girl, I also enjoyed seeing James Acaster in the movie as Winstons main engineer as his physical appearance was very very close to Egon in the Cartoon version of the Ghostbusters and I would have been down with him being one of a main four taking up the mantle.

I wouldn't necessarily say that "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire" is a total disaster. The effects are solid, and there's not much that drifts into the "bad" territory. But unfortunately, the movie is also one of those typical examples of a project that was obviously created by committee. The focus was more on misguided fan service than an interesting story. Because it's not really clear to me what exactly the point of the movie was. There are also far too many characters, none of whom are really given room to develop. Some of them, such as Lucky (Celeste O'Connor) and Podcast (Logan Kim), are completely superfluous and disappear for long stretches of time.

And ultimately, "Frozen Empire" simply lacks creativity. I mean, the finale even has a sky beam - and this is 2024. In the end, the movie certainly won't stay in my memory for long, which is kind of a shame, but it's just not enough to ride the nostalgia wave anymore. If more space had been given to the Spengler family as the "new" Ghostbusters (Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, and Mckenna Grace), there might have been more to it. As it is, the movie is nothing more than pure mediocrity.

Frozen Empire is the lowest rated Ghostbusters movie, so you know it was good. Since a lot of the critics are biased and are mad the 2016 film didn’t get a sequel. As well are still mad about the the hate the 2016 film got before and after it was released.
The 2016 film was still hard to sit through until you got to the good stuff….in the end. It was just friends enjoying goofing off making a movie together. The audience had less fun. Afterlife was just a nice little nostalgia movie with mostly only emotion and decent humor going for it.
Frozen Empire has a bit of a goofy plot and the nostalgia. I just knew throughout that I was having a good time.
I also give the movie credit for having an original villain. Afterlife recycled Zuul from the original. Frozen Empire was originally rumored to have Vigo back from Ghostbusters 2.
While Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) has some nice scenes with a ghost girl named Melody (Emily Alyn Lind). If anyone was going to be friends with a ghost though. I was waiting patiently for Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) to befriend Slimer.
That is what I want to see as a Ghostbusters movie and animated series fan, more Slimer. With maybe a reference that he was friends with the Ghostbusters.
The Ghostbusters is fiction. I had to remind myself that. Since spoiler alert: there’s someone who can control fire called the Fire Master. I had remind myself as something with ghosts and catching ghosts. So sure, a guy who controls fire sort of works in that universe…..I guess.