Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire 'feels closer to a proper Ghostbusters film than any other sequel' (2024)

It's been 40 years since Ivan Reitman's Ghostbusters combined irreverent comedy with special effects-heavy blockbuster thrills, and since then there have been numerous attempts to recreate its blend of sarcasm, sincerity, scruffiness and spookiness. In 1989, there was Reitman's so-so sequel, Ghostbusters II; in 2016, there was Paul Feig's reviled all-female reboot; in 2021, there was a legacy sequel, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which was directed by Reitman's son, Jason Reitman; and now there's a sequel to that sequel, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which is co-written by Reitman Jr and directed by Gil Kenan. In some ways, it feels closer to a proper Ghostbusters film than any of the other reboots and sequels so far.

One key factor is the setting. Ghostbusters: Afterlife was set in rural Oklahoma, where a science teacher named Gary (Paul Rudd) met Callie (Carrie Coon), the daughter of one of the founding Ghostbusters, Egon Spengler (the late Harold Ramis). Together with her two teenage children (Finn Wolfhard and Mckenna Grace), they brought the Ghostbusting business back from the dead.

This time, Kenan and Reitman have made the wise decision to return the franchise to New York where it belongs: even better, Gary and the Spenglers have relocated to the converted fire station which the first Ghostbusters used as their headquarters, and which is still haunted by a certain slimy spectre. The new generation is also up against the disapproving bureaucrat, Walter Peck (William Atherton) from the 1984 film, but they end up with a more fearsome adversary, an ancient demon that has been trapped in an enchanted brass ball for thousands of years and which, inevitably, won't be trapped there for much longer.

The authentically Ghostbustery spirit of the film doesn't just come from its references to the original, although there are several hundred of those. It comes from the mischievous sense of humour, the sprightly music, the lived-in production design, the loving shots of New York's landmarks and busy streets, the spine-tingling use of puppetry as well as digital effects, and all sorts of other little elements that hark back to 1984. Just as Star Wars: The Force Awakens seemed more like a genuine Star Wars film than any of the prequels, Kenan and his team have used their proton packs to capture the atmosphere of the first Ghostbusters.

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On the other hand, The Force Awakens was weighed down by having too many characters - and the same is true of Frozen Empire, only more so. I can't say I was delighted that Afterlife took the franchise away from some middle-aged scientists and handed it to some teenage nerds and the grown-ups who looked after them, but if Kenan had stuck with that concept, he might well have made a family-friendly blockbuster to treasure. A comedy about Paul Rudd learning to be a step-parent while battling the undead sounds promising to me. But, after an engaging start, Kenan keeps piling in more and more people.

It's understandable that he should include some familiar faces from the first film, so Dan Aykroyd's Ray is shown running his occult book shop, Ernie Hudson's Winston has set up a high-tech paranormal research facility with the help of Annie Potts' Janine, and Bill Murray's Peter is... well, it's not entirely clear what Bill Murray's Peter is doing, but he does manage to steal the show when he drops by for a couple of brief scenes.

Unfortunately, Kenan doesn't stop there. For some reason, he brings in James Acaster as a trainee Ghostbuster, and Patton Oswalt as an authority on obscure folklore. Kumail Nanjiani gets the tone right as a slacker with a supernatural secret, and Celeste O'Connor, Logan Kim and Emily Alyn Lind offer less value as the Spengler teens' extraneous friends.

Back in 1984, the first film invited viewers to hang out with a handful of distinctive characters, whereas the new film replaces that band of brothers with a whole crowd of Ghostbusters and wannabe Ghostbusters. As it drifts between all of their subplots and all of their emotional problems, losing momentum as it goes, Frozen Empire raises the increasingly frustrating suspicion that Kenan and Reitman couldn't choose which of their various story ideas to use, and so decided to use them all.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

The over-stuffed, over-complicated nature of the film extends all the way to its main villain. We're told that this nicely menacing monster has the power to control the minds of other ghosts, but it also has the power to open a gulf between dimensions, and the power to freeze people with fear, and the power to freeze them more literally by making the temperature drop to absolute zero. Wouldn't one or two of those powers have been sufficient? A sure sign that Kenan has too much material to handle is that the under-used demon never gets the chance to show off everything it can do. The film's last act involves New York City being encased in ice, and an army of ghosts falling under its spell, and yet we barely glimpse either of these fairly major events. It makes for an anticlimactic climax. Another sign that the film has too much going is even more fundamental. It's called Frozen Empire, and yet it doesn't have a frozen empire in it.

★★★☆☆

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is released on 22 March.

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