Ghostbusters: From Afterlife (2021) to Frozen Empire (2024)

So I finally caught up with Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire… and the full version of this article is now available to read for free for everyone.

It’s perfectly okay if you don’t become a paid subscriber, not everyone can afford too and there is a plenty of other stuff to read online.

I did, however, at least temporarily reduce the price of a paid subscription, so if you do sign up, well, not only I’d be extremely honored, you can also tell me what you would like me to write about next. Deal?

Here we go…

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is the mostly fine fifth entry in the long running franchise, that is slowly but surely running out of commercial steam.

Directed by Gil Kenan, from a script by Kenan and legacy curator Jason Reitman, it sees the main characters moving back to NYC, after their previous adventures in Summerville, Oklahoma in Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021). 

That movie was a perfectly fine way of reigniting a frozen franchise, after the blowout success of the first two movies, from 1984 and 1989, and the false re-start that was Answer The Call (2016). Even though that movie was pretty enjoyable, it showed that the hardcore fans were not ready for an all female Ghostbusters quartet and the studio subsequently caved. 

The more readily embraced Afterlife was basically ‘Ghostbusters meets a more lighthearted version of Stranger Things’, with Mckenna Grace (as Phoebe Spengler) in the Millie Bobby Brown role and Finn Wolfhard (as Phoebe’s older brother Trevor) as ‘that guy you already know from Stranger Things’.

The always great Carrie Coon (as Callie Spengler) was great once again in the mother role, while Paul Rudd (as Gary Grooberson) also excelled as a maths teacher and a possible romantic interest (for Callie), and there were other new names like Podcast (Logan Kim) and Lucky (Celeste O’Connor) as friends for respectively Phoebe and Trevor.

To add to this, there were special appearances by original ghostbusters Venkman (Bill Murray), Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) and Winston (Ernie Hudson), to bridge the generational gap between past and present. Which was fitting enough, since the movie was basically about Callie, Phoebe and Trevor finding out their connection to the original Ghostbusters and the secret legacy left behind by their dear departed grandfather Egon, who was played by the late Harold Ramis in the original movies.

In Frozen Empire - dedicated to original director Ivan Reitman, who also left us since the last movie - this whole lot of cast is back. Plus some brand new faces (like Kumail Nanjiani in a plum role) and some returning ones from earlier franchise entries, like William Atherton as Mayor Walter Peck. It’s a bit much, to say the least, and coupled with some sub plots that don’t really go anywhere - hopefully there will be an extended cut someday to do them justice - director Kenan has trouble giving each actor enough screen time  - if he can get them into the frame at all.

Still, I enjoyed most of the movie much more than I expected to, maybe because my expectations were sufficiently lowered due to the mostly poor reviews by critics who seemed notably more tired of the franchise than me.

So according to the Offical Synopsis, The Spengler family returns to where it all started – the iconic New York City firehouse – to team up with the original Ghostbusters, who’ve developed a top-secret research lab to take busting ghosts to the next level. But when the discovery of an ancient artifact unleashes an evil force, Ghostbusters new and old must join forces to protect their home and save the world from a second Ice Age.

This is basically all you need to know, and while the story most definitely has an episode of the week feel to it, I just really liked the way it kept going from scene to scene, keeping me engrossed throughout and just wondering how it would all play out. Overcrowded though it may be, I liked the characters and I liked the pacing of the movie, so the editing also did something right. I also liked the practical effects and there’s quite a lot of them, so that’s another plus. 

I also liked the comic timing, even if it felt ‘sitcomic’ at times. I also thought most of the dialogue was funny, and I liked the way Phoebe fell in love with a ghost, Melody, who was looking for a way to follow her family into the afterlife, even if that involves making some morally dubious decisions. 

It’s a pity that so far Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is not as big a hit as it needs to be. Budgeted at 100 million dollars plus marketing costs, it may crawl to a worldwide gross of 200 million dollars - with half of that money going to theaters - and make up the rest through Video on Demand revenue, Sony’s streaming deal with Netflix and a boost in Ghostbusters merchandise sales. 

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