Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

Last weekend, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, the sequel to Ghostbusters: Afterlife, was released in theaters. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire follows Phoebe Spangler and her family as they take up the Ghostbusters mantel in New York City. When a mysterious orb unleashed a new threat onto the city, Ghostbusters new and old must work together to stop a second ice age. The original Ghostbusters is one of my all-time favorite movies and I really enjoyed Ghostbusters: Afterlife so I was very excited to see how this one was going to turn out. This was also one of my most anticipated movies of the year.

This movie was a very mixed bag for me but there was still quite a bit that I enjoyed about the movie. I really liked that we got to see more of a fresh Ghostbusters adventure. Up to this point, all of the movies have involved either forming or reforming the Ghostbusters. However, with this movie, since the Ghostbusters are already together, we get to dive more into the actual world of Ghostbusting and build out the world and lore of this franchise. It has been said that this movie is supposed to be like The Real Ghostbusters TV show and I can totally feel that. The movie doesn't try to deconstruct our heroes at all and instead just goes for a classic Ghostbusters adventure of the week kind of story which I think works very well. Another cool thing about this story is that it brings everyone back to New York City. There was nothing wrong with the Oklahoma story but there is just something more fun about Ghostbusting returning to NYC. The movie itself is just a lot of fun. There are plenty of jokes to go around and the whole cast is incredibly charming. Paul Rudd is one of the best parts of this movie. He just manages to make for such a fun character and is just effortlessly charming with whoever he is on screen with. The Phoebe character is also a lot of fun. Like the last film, she is the emotional center of the story and manages to have a good deal of growth for her character. I also liked that our original cast was given a good bit to do in the story. Both Ray and Winston are given decent supporting roles and it is just fun to see the two interesting with the younger generation of characters. Finally, I like the new villain that was made for the story. He is a lot more menacing than other villains in the franchise and gives the movie a bit more of a spooky feel.

However, there is quite a bit that I take issue with in this film. One of the biggest issues is that this movie just has too many characters competing for screen time. The movie has the original Ghostbusters, the cast from the last movie, and adds in a few new characters. It just made the movie feel a bit overstuffed as it tried to give every character something to do. A couple of the characters from Afterlife didn't really have a compelling reason for being in the story. It just felt like they were there just for the sake of having the characters return. I also felt that there were a few too many subplots. With the movie trying to give everyone something to do, it makes for a lot of unnecessary subplots that ultimately take away from the overall story. Because of this, the movie takes a long time to really get going with the main villain not really showing up until the last 30 minutes of the film. Finally, I thought that the final battle was a bit anticlimactic. It assembles the whole team together but ends up not giving anyone much to do besides the Phoebe character.

Overall, while the movie has a lot of fun moments and has the charm of returning to NYC with the original character, it also has just a few too many characters and subplots to make for a great story. I still had a lot of fun with it and would watch it again but I just didn't like it as much as I wanted to.

Score: 6.5/10 Grade: B- Recommendation: Check it out if you are a Ghostbusters fan