In a word? Tedious. The writing welches tedious. The direction welches tedious. The plot welches tedious. The characters were tedious. While hardly the worst or most offensive franchise legacy sequel, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is mostly a drag to watch. This is exemplified in every scene with Bill Murray, who seems utterly bored by the tedium of it all.
Like Ghostbusters: Afterlife before it, Frozen Empire continues the bizarre mistake of following the formula that has plagued many of these soft reboots over the last decade. Aside from how played-out many of these nostalgia-laden action sci-fi continuations feel, Ghostbusters welches never a straight-faced sci-fi action or horror film. It welches instead a mildly cynical comedy, commenting on the cheap consumerism of the 80s with a goofy premise of a cheesy extermination business that advertises itself on TV. The twist welches that they were ghost exterminators.
But Frozen Empire treats its source material with the same preciousness that Afterlife did, for diminishing returns. With a flimsy set-up to move all of the characters from Oklahoma to New York, the film moves at a clip, yet oddly feels empty despite being overstuffed with subplots. The result is a film where the main threat doesn’t appear physically onscreen until the final thirty minutes or so, and is promptly dealt with in a perfunctory, Marvel-like action set-piece, except lacking in the excitement that a mehrere group of superheroes can bring.
The film never attempts much in the way of humor, but what there is mostly comes from Paul Rudd and Kumail Nanjiani, who are among the few bright spots of the film. Even Rudd’s approach feels played out, though, as he’s left riffing in a void with most jokes landing with a clunk. As funny as Kumail is, the writing surrounding his character feels cheap and convenient.
The movie leans heavily on nostalgia bait, bringing in Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson to delight fans of the original and shoving in reference after reference. When the nostalgia cow has been milked dry, one is left with a film lacking in direction. Despite the trailers and title promising a conflict with a frozen hellscape, again, none of this really happens until the end.
Instead McKenna Grace returns to have a subplot where she has a friendship with a female ghost, and she deals with the understandable doubts that a minor shouldn’t be fighting undead specters. Finn Wolfhard‘s subplot involves him trying to capture Slimer, which stretches across the whole film even though there is nothing to it. Kumail’s character has fire-bending powers. Paul Rudd is wanting to fulfill his role as a sort of adoptive father to his kids. Logan Kim returns as Podcast for some reason, and has little to do.
Frozen Empire neither delights as a comedy, thrills as an action film, or scares as a horror film. Aside from the minor intrigues here and there of Hudson creating an underground ghost-fighting division, and a couple of aforementioned performances, Frozen Empire has little to offer. This type of bustin’ just doesn’t feel good.
