Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is bloated, nostalgic — and surprisingly good | CBC News (2024)

Jackson Weaver · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 22, 2024 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: March 22

There is a scene at the end of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire that is, for the most part, exactly the same as every Ghostbusters finale. But where the 1984 originalconcluded with only four 'busters in a late-nightfaceoff with the glowing-eyed final ghost-boss, Ghostbusters II and the ill-fated 2016 reboot upped the total to five, while the 2021 revival,Ghostbusters: Afterlife, topped out at eight.

In returning to the world of big city ghosts and the blue-collar workers whotrap them, Frozen Empire bumps the squadup to a plot-burdening 11people busting ghosts. They are spread out into three groups, all with their own backstories, arcs and requisite callback bits to previous movies.(Not to mention a12th, played by comedian James Acaster, passed out in the attic.)

While counting the number of '80s haircuts sprinkled with ectoplasm may not sound like the most insightful way to judge a film, it absolutely is for Ghostbusters:Frozen Empire.That's because nostalgia-inducing actors and set pieces arethe central draw, and central purpose, for all Ghostbusterssequels.

From its inception, Ghostbusters was more a theme ride than anything else. It's somethingco-writer and co-star Harold Ramis himself identified when he tried to get a third Ghostbusters sequel off the ground in 2005, the fact that "what works so well about the first two [films] is the mundane-ness of it all."

WATCH | Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire trailer:

Because, as critic Patrick Willems pointed out in his video essay on the original film, "every movie is about something — except for Ghostbusters. It's perfect, but it's not about anything." The characters of Ghostbusters do not grow or change over its duration. There is no real narrative theme or message underneath its plot, andeveryone in Ghostbusters is the same person with the same values at the close as at the beginning.

Though that worked wonders for the original, leading to a sort of A-Teamromp of sideshow ghost-busting and guys being dudes, it offers virtually zero fodder for re-creation.

Frozen Empiredragsalong theexact same cast of characters (while tacking on a few extras)as its predecessor, Afterlife. Back in the iconic New York firehouse, we once again follow the descendants of the original's Egon Spengler (Ramis):there's mother, Callie (Carrie Coon), older brother Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and sort-of father figure Gary (Paul Rudd) operating as nouveaughostbusters. And vaguely at the centre is 15-year-old Phoebe (Mckenna Grace), anchoring a busy sequel that positions itself like something of a reunion tour.

With this follow-up, the three surviving ghostbusters (Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson andDan Aykroyd) have made comebacks or cameos in all four sequels, whilespectral mainstays Stay Puft and Slimerhave each only missed a single one.

Frozen Empire even makes pains to reintroduce William Atherton as Walter Peck, decades after he portrayedanantagonist so reviled that, according to director Ivan Reitman in the original film's DVD commentary, people in bars would pick fights and passing children would scream insults at him.

WATCH | Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is overstuffed, but worth watching:

Nostalgia-bait

WhileGhostbusters showcasedthe charisma of its leads and creative, quirkily horrifying fun of its world, every sequel is forced to prop itself up as a way to reframe the same gags and characters in an exercise in diminishing returns.

So as Frozen Empire does so for the fourth time, it is overburdened by the lore and jokes it's forced to point back to, and the rogue's gallery of new characters it's been forced to pick up. But even with the Marvel Cinematic Universeor Game of Thrones-like story splintering that's required to follow them all, it's accomplished with a sense of style.

Like Afterlife, Frozen Empire was written by original producer/directorIvan Reitman's son Jason. And like the original Ghostbusters, Jason Reitman understood the dual tone that makes the franchise work. One aspect isan unashamed adherence to formulaic-but-fun storytelling and character archetypes, which gives filma genuine and warm VHS-blockbustervibe.Early on, Atherton even has a line about reducing "that firehouse you call a home… to a pile of bricks." It's socampily villainous it reads as if it was pulled straight out of an '80s movie about a rich developer buying out the local teens' ski mountain.

The other aspect is the unique mix of pessimistic horror and off-the-cuff comedy that gave Ghostbusters its unique voice.Though the visuals of a tiny Stay Puft marshmallow man giggling as its arm is shredded in a pencil sharpener mightresemble Despicable Me's minions or Harry Potter's Dobby in how sickeningly obvious thecuteness has been boardroom engineered, it's somethingyou won't find in any other film.

Elsewhere that comedy is found in the performance of its stars — most impressively Kumail Nanjiani as the hilarious chronic underachiever Nadeem Razmaadi, and far less so with the disappointingly underutilized (and attic-trapped)Acaster.

But Frozen Empire turns its lemons into lemonade with those arcs — which, coincidentally, help distract from the fact that there are no ideas left to mine in theGhostbustersfranchise. Andthough they might besimplistic gains,Frozen Empire does well to make sure its characters develop. Even Aykroyd's Ray Stantz is given a lesson to learn, while Ernie Hudson's Winston Zeddemore is given themostly offscreen development from an out-of-work hanger-on into an obscenely rich parascience patron.

It's far from perfect — and functions better as a kids movie than the slightly-more-adult comedy of the original. But as Bill Murray stumbles into the firehall for his obligatory cameo, punches a nondescript wall panelto reveal a hidden liquor bottle, it becomes more obvious that he is the last character to have undergone no changes and learned zero lessons — and how much the franchise has been forced to change to put out another movie at all.

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