Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

Title: Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
Director: Gil Kenan
Released: 2024
Starring: Mckenna Grace, Emily Alyn Lind, Finn Wolfhard, Bill Murray, Carrie Coon, Gil Kenan, Paul Rudd, Ernie Hudson, Dan Aykroyd, Jamie Acaster, Annie Potts, Kumail Nanjiani, William Atherton, Patton Oswalt,  

Plot: Three years after the events of Ghostbusters: Afterlife the new Ghostbusters team have relocated to New York only to soon face Garraka, a demon set on bringing about a new Ice Age.

Review: With the franchise revived and the winey fanboys appeased by the previous film rehashing the first film but hey if it worked for Star Wars with The Force Awakens why not Ghostbusters. Still while Afterlife brought a fresh rural setting to the film Frozen Empire decides to move the team back to New York for no real explainable reason other than being a convenient way to work the original crew into the mix. 

Hitting the ground running we find the Spenglers and Paul Rudd’s former teacher long term Ghosterbuster groupie Gary still holding up grandpa Egon’s legacy as they continue to bust ghosts much to the ire of Mayor Walter Peck (a returning William Atherton) which soon sees Phoebe being benched. Elsewhere both Podcast and Lucky are also in the city thanks to convenient plotting with Podcast now hosting a youtube show about cursed objects with Ray while Lucky is now working at a Ghostbusting lab set up by Winston who provides the real backbone to the film by being able to link the various plots together and being the much needed voice of reason when everyone is so busy giddily running around the city having their own paranormal encounters. 

The film certainly starts off on a promising note in 1904 with the Manhattan Adventurers society unwittingly releasing the ice demon Garraka and while this is followed up by the current team chasing down a sewer dragon through Hell’s Kitchen showcasing some fun new pieces of kit like a drone trap the film soon begins to stumble as it tries to find something for this greatly expanded crew of Ghostbusters to do. If the film wasn’t already creaking under the weight of its cast it further adds to this mix with Comedian James Acaster’s paranormal researcher Dr. Pinfield who is a fun addition to the team while Patton Oswalt while enjoyable as always, is really only there to provide an infodump on the background of the film big bad who themselves only shows up at finale.

Frustratingly with every character having to have their moment we do get a lack of paranormal thrills even though Slimer is brought out once more to maximise the nostalgia dollar while the Mini Stay Puffs also make a return though the reasons why are as unexplained as the reason for many characters being worked into the plot. Sure there are some fun new ghosts showcased such as slime spewing spud on legs but in a film crying out for setpieces the film instead chooses to invest its energy into establishing Kumail Nanjiani’s Nadeem’s legacy as a “Fire Master” which only serves to provide a bail out for the team rather than getting to see that Ghostbusters creative problem solving

While it’s still a fun time I couldn’t help the whole time that the film was a mini series that had been edited down into a film version. Sure there are some fun ideas introduced like the Ghost lab that I’d love to see developed further in the next film. Hopefully this film was just the transition to the city and now the foundations have been laid the future instalments can focus more on the Busting and less on the group turmoil. 

Perhaps now the nostalgia has hopefully been tapped out of the franchise we can get back to having new adventures than rehashing the past for if the cartoon series can come up with seven seasons and a spin off worth of material surely the same inspiration can be found for the films aswell.