Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
Scenes from something like a Ghostbusters movie
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)
2 stars/5
There are two competing concepts that make this a really hard review to write. First, I adore Ghostbusters. Everything about the franchise is just catnip to me. It’s so unique that it absolutely deserves the nerd-love it gets. And while I was outside the age group for the cartoon audience, I’ve been there for the whole collected films (even the 2016 reboot wasn’t awful, though it wasn’t especially good, either), and beyond (the role-playing game boxed set is still in my collection). Still, I’m realistic: by the time you make it to Part 3 of anything, the best you can generally hope for is just okay. By the time part 4 rolls around, you really have to be a True Fan™ to keep rallying to that flag. Still, even knowing that truth, I was willing to answer the call and rally to the flag once more.
That means the second concept really hurt this time: I HATE it when characters don’t compare notes. When characters in a movie who have good reason to keep each other informed about important ideas and events inexplicably choose not to do so, it snaps me right out of the film and kills all the momentum. There can be reasons this kind of communication doesn’t happen, but those reasons need to get shown to the audience at some point. And Frozen Empire never explains some enormous failures in this regard.
Because this communication is either absent or reluctant (bordering on absurd real-time retconning), the exposition such conversations would provide gets awfully thin and the story advances in random spurts. It’s like the movie is a recorded session of the cast improvising the story live. This is less a Ghostbusters movie and more an excuse for the whole cast to indulge in some curtain-call mugging. I was primed for this movie to not be super-amazing but still worth getting the benefit of the doubt, rooted in my longtime fandom. It squandered my good will. I am saddened to be so disappointed.
2 stars of 5: There are probably diehard fans out there who can find stuff here to like, but this one’s a miss for me (which really hurts).
I must be one of those diehard fans lol. I like ALMOST everything Ghostbusters (pretty much everything except the 2016 movie which I’ve seen some of and didn’t like, and the cartoon which I just haven’t seen yet). While Frozen Empire has a multitude of flaws, I still like and enjoy it despite those flaws and can’t help but wait and hope that a next one rolls out. I can definitely see why Frozen Empire isn’t reviewed well, but I still think it’s better than 2016 and Ghostbusters II (the latter of which I also love). I think FE is a very flawed movie like you said, yet I can’t help but like it. Obviously nothing beats the original though.