Movie: Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
Cast: Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, James Acaster, Dan Aykroyd, McKenna Grace, Bill Murray, Annie Potts, Patton Oswalt, Kumail Nanjiani
Director: Gil Kenan
Rating: 2.5/5
Duration: 115 min.
‘Afterlife’, while depressing in many ways, may have given the franchise a new lease of life, and this ‘Frozen Empire’ is better in almost every way. Even so, it leaves you cold due to its overwhelming blandness. There is really no attachment or emotion here. The film is well crafted, has good effects, some comedic moments, and action scenes fit for a graphic novel. It’s a generic family action movie with the original cast lending weight to the proceedings.
Nadeem (Kumail Nanjani) sells his late grandmother’s relics to Ray (Dan Aykroyd), who has his YouTube channel and runs an antique store. What they both do not know is that one of the artifacts, an orb, contains a tyrannical specter that had almost destroyed the Earth and promises to do so again. So the Ghostbusters, both new and old, must join forces to protect their home and save the world from a second ice age.
Director Gil Kenan, who took over directing duties on the film from Jason Reitman, does a pretty decent job of balancing the old and the new. The dialogue is more light-hearted and the story takes a completely different direction.
Kenan and Reitman have co-written the script, but the laughs are slow to arrive and it is the agile and mobile actors who lift the spirits. Which Paul Rudd and Patton Oswalt do very well. The other stars of the 1984 original also return. Bill Murray has an all-too-brief appearance, Dan Aykroyd as Stantz has the meatier role, and Ernie Hudson as Zeddemore appears as the owner of a high-tech paranormal research laboratory. Annie Potts also returns as Janine. In fact, they have to devote more screen time to Spengler’s descendants: Carrie Coon’s Callie, her science genius daughter, Phoebe (Mckenna Grace), and her perpetually annoying son, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard).
The plot is random, the plot is thin, and the performances, while enjoyable, don’t hit memorable notes. They could have done so much more with this movie. This fan service is much more organized compared to ‘Afterlife’, but it’s also light.
Frozen Empire feels more like a horror movie (with ghosts but no blood or scares) than a comedy. With too many characters and too much confusion in the narrative, it feels clueless and unbalanced. The returning characters don’t have much to do and the newer ones also fall by the wayside.
The opening car chase scene is interesting enough, but after that there’s so much hot air masquerading as science that it all starts to fade away. Gil Kenan’s direction is firm. He manages to raise some atmospheric effects and a minimum of suspense.
The mythology of an ancient, evil monster accidentally freeing itself from the metal orb in which it was imprisoned is effective because the visual effects make the paranormal being appear fearsome. While the threat of a permanent ice age in which decades of captured ghosts would burst free and wreak havoc on Manhattan seems too far-fetched to accept. Kumail Nanjiani’s character may be essential to the story, but his comedy is not ridiculous. The plot gets a little complicated trying to fit in numerous cameos from people who don’t have much to do here other than lend their face and name. ‘Frozen Empire’ fails to excite the audience even though it is one step closer to the original than ‘Afterlife’.