-Justin Nordell
This year the original Ghostbusters film turns 40 and to celebrate we get… yet another legacy sequel. Yay?
As one of the (seemingly) few people that really enjoyed the all-female (and mostly SNL alum) starring Ghostbusters in 2016 and was just so-so on 2021’s silly and sentimental Ghostbusters Afterlife, I’ll be honest that I wasn’t exactly looking forward to spending more time with the next generation of Egon Spengler’s family discovering how to ghostbust… when I sorta kinda would rather have more Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon. So color me surprised that Ghostbusters Frozen Empire is a return to form of balancing the fun and funny in the franchise.
Moving the ghostbusting from the last film’s Oklahoma setting back to NYC where Ghostbusters belongs, the film opens with the Spengler family, daughter Phoebe (McKenna Grace, I Tonya); son Trevor (Finn Wolfhard, “Stranger Things”); mom Callie (Carrie Coon, “The Gilded Age); and boyfriend/potential-future-stepdad-in-training Gary (Paul Rudd, Clueless), actively hunting a Hell’s Kitchen Sewer Dragon ghost terrorizing the city. After busting said ghost, using a super spiffy ghost trap on a drone no less, they may have saved the city but like their namesake Egon… they’ve destroyed a nice chunk of the city in the process.
Escorted to City Hall, our family are sat down in front of the mayor of New York City, none other than everyone’s least favorite schmuck from the original film Walter Peck (William Atherton, Die Hard). Mayor Peck lets them know that they’re on thin ice and he’d like nothing more than to shut down the Ghostbusters once and for all and close down the firehouse and its overflowing ghost containment unit that his been owned and kept up by original Ghostbuster turned entrepreneur Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson, The Crow) and his right hand woman Janine Melnirz (Annie Potts, “Designing Women”)… isn’t that what he tried in the first film? Regardless, Mayor Peck also forbade Phoebe from joining in any more ghost busting… as a 15 year old there are child labor laws to consider.
Meanwhile Podcast (Logan Kim, the most annoying character from Ghostbusters Afterlife who doesn’t get any better this time around) has an internship across town with none other than Dr. Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd, My Girl) helping him setup a YouTube channel in which he detects spiritual anomalies in everyday objects. A man named Nadeem (a hilarious throughout Kumail Nanjiani, The Big Sick) brings in a bronze orb he found in his grandmother’s apartment after she passed away and its readings are off the charts! Nadeem literally takes the money and runs, leaving Dr. Stantz with the bronze orb ghost timebomb and enlists Phoebe and Podcast (as well Patton Oswalt, Ratatouille) to research it further. Turns out that Nadeem’s grandmother was part of an ancient order protecting the world from an evil and vengeful god with the ability to control ghosts who last escaped just over 100 years ago. Can both generations of Ghostbusters come together to stop this ancient evil before it causes the big apple to freeze over?
While it is phenomenal to spend time with original cast members Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, and Dan Aykroyd again (sorry y’all Bill Murray is in a whopping two scenes), Ghostbusters Frozen Empire belongs to the Gen Z cast especially McKenna Grace’s Phoebe – this is her film. Luckily, after setup and schmaltz heavy Ghostbusters Afterlife, I’m happy to say that Frozen Empire finds a much better balance of the nostalgia and the modern – hitting similar beats to previous films while still bringing the franchise into the 2020’s. That, and Kumail Nanjiani really brings the funny.
This is the first film from Gil Kenan since Monster House to recapture his unique charm and ability to create gateway horror frights with delightful moments of levity. My expectations were low and they were easily surpassed – Frozen Empire ironically brings the heat and the fun back to the Ghostbustersfranchise.
Grade: B
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