Does the world need more Ghostbusters movies? I grew up on the original like a lot of people my age, and I do hold it as one of the classics of my childhood, but there’s this feeling I have that it was maybe not built to be a franchise. That said, Ghostbusters: Afterlife did have a nice charm to it, in part because it didn’t feel quite like a Ghostbusters movie. Directed as it was by the son of the original movie’s director, a man who more literally than most grew up with Ghostbusters than most–Jason Reitman is only a couple years younger than I am–it held moments and lines from the original movie like some sort of sacred text as opposed to just lines from a comedy where no one really intended there to be a sequel when they made it because not everything was a franchise back then.
But now that relaunch has a sequel, one that promised to bring back the original cast again while keeping the new, younger Ghostbusters around and bringing in a different threat that isn’t a retread of Gozer, and I could see if the movie was trying something different or not.
It’s a couple years after the events of Afterlife, and the Spengler family–with mom Callie’s (Carrie Coon) boyfriend and Ghostbusters fanboy Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd) along for the ride–are now the official Ghostbusters working out of the old fire house with the old car and the containment unit. 18 year old Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) is tired of being treated like a kid and at least wants to drive the car while 15 year old Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) just wants to be out in the field. But when Mayor Walter Peck (William Atherton) is ready to bring the hammer down on the group for their extensive property damage, the adults realize they have to keep Phoebe at home given her status as a minor. Meanwhile, occult shop owner Ray Stanz (Dan Aykroyd) gets an offer from one Nadeem Razmaadi (Kumail Nanjiani) for a bunch of old items Nadeem’s grandmother was holding onto. Among those items is some kind of mysterious orb whose psychic energy is really off the charts that it scares the other spectral things running around Ray’s shop.
Apparently, the orb is an ancient trap of some kind for a really bad evil, one that has power over other ghosts, and it wants out. Former Ghostbuster Winston (Ernie Hudson) has a lab set up to look into those things, and it’s not looking good. There’s a plan afoot to let that thing out, one that will see the end of the world and a new ice age. Can the Ghostbusters, past and present, get their act together long enough to save the day?
I’ve seen a few reviews for this movie, and they all say more or less the same thing: there are far too many characters in this thing. That’s basically true. Bill Murray’s Peter Venkman is once again basically an extended cameo over two scenes. Annie Potts is there for some reason beyond the fact she works for Winston. Aykroyd, also given an executive producer role, has a pretty decent-sized role, and there’s a moment where Ray and Winston have a conversation that is, perhaps, a little too on-the-nose about whether or not this was how they wanted to spend their golden years. Given both of those actors are in their 70s and still making these movies, that’s a good question. Likewise, new characters like Podcast (Logan Kim) and Lucky (Celeste O’Connor) are back but don’t seem to have a reason to be there, and there’s a feeling the movie is wasting the talents of both Rudd and Coon, something I would consider something of a cinematic crime for two very different reasons. Perhaps much like Nanjiani’s MCU debut in Eternals, there’s just too many characters here, including one or two I didn’t even mention here.
And yet, I didn’t hate or even dislike this one. There’s a bit of a charm here, largely due to a couple factors. The movie’s Big Bad actually has a decent look, and this time there’s a new threat. Heck, this might be the first Ghostbusters movie with what feels like a body count of more than one or two. It’s not particularly funny, but maybe they should try making a movie like this without being overly comedic. But beyond that, Nanjiani is actually pretty amusing in this one, and he does seem to be trying more than many of his co-stars. Meanwhile, Mckenna Grace seems to be set up as the narrative focus, and while her character is not treated in a particularly comedic manner in many of her scenes, she does do a good enough job to hold this shambling narrative together. Frozen Empire is a serviceable enough movie, but the biggest problem is, I think, it had a lot more potential to be better than this, but they threw in enough for maybe two or three more movies, and that’s the movie’s biggest problem.
Grade: C+
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