Anthony's Film Review - Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)

The fourth main Ghostbusters movie (fifth overall) is all right, fun with some drawbacks...

Often, when I write movie reviews, I will summarize the rationale for my 1-to-10 rating of the movie in the last paragraph, after going into details in the preceding paragraphs. This review is one of the rare exceptions. For the 2024 movie Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, I will lead into my review of it by announcing right away what my final rating is. Are you ready? Here it is. I give this movie 6 out of 10 stars. OK, now that I've gotten your attention, let me explain why.

One of my criticisms of the previous movie, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, was that the late part of it went a bit too far with self-references of the original 1984 movie, in a way that turned the audience's attention away from the new Ghostbusters characters in favor of the old ones. Thankfully, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire shines the spotlight on the new and the old without neglecting the former. In fact, the only self-referencing in this movie that felt off involved one scene incorporating lyrics of Ray Parker Jr.'s Ghostbusters song directly into spoken dialogue. While this averts one problem, it introduces another: minimal development of new characters, because there are plenty of them but the movie is limited to almost two hours in length.

The main four new characters are enough already: the two grandchildren of original Ghostbuster Egon Spengler, Phoebe (McKenna Grace) and Trevor (Finn Wolfhard); Callie (Carrie Coon), their mother as well as Egon's daughter; and Callie's boyfriend Gary (Paul Rudd) who had also been Phoebe's science teacher. These are the four new Ghostbusters protecting today's New York City from the supernatural. But then you also have Phoebe and Trevor's best friends from school in the previous movie, a man played by Kumail Nanjiani who possesses the artifact that propels the story here, a history professor played by Patton Oswalt, and the ghost of a teenage girl played by Emily Alyn Lind who tries to connect with Phoebe as a friend. They are interesting characters to have and do play important parts here, but because time is of the essence when it comes to storytelling, character development for all is rather limited.

Funny thing: I could sort of say the same about the plot, too. There is a plot, but it felt like it could be developed more. What you have here are interesting story elements, but for me, it felt like they were presented more like individual but separate pieces rather than parts of a cohesive whole. Don't get me wrong. I like some of the story ideas here, like a new paranormal research laboratory headed by former Ghostbuster Winston Zeddmore (Ernie Hudson), the artifact related to the main paranormal phenomena, and Phoebe's new ghost friend. It's just that going from one scene to another sort of felt like switching from one story to another, not switching to different parts of the same story.

For me, the result was that I was still able to follow the movie, but with a minimal amount of excitement. Even if the climax of the movie, with sections of New York starting to freeze, was rather cool to watch (pun intended), the weight of my criticisms still tipped my scale to 6 stars, without really heading up to a 7. Some of the things I mentioned here also carried over to this part of the movie. And when it was all over, it was over rather quickly.

I'm not against another Ghostbusters movie being made after Frozen Empire. I wouldn't mind it, as long as they make it better than this one, maybe better than Afterlife as well. Hell, just aim high by making the new movie as good or better than the first movie in 1984. Yes, it has been 40 years since that original film, and while I'm glad the series is still continuing, just make sure it's solid and guaranteed to entertain a wide audience. The 1984 movie was great for a reason. Use that as a benchmark from now on.

Anthony's Rating:

For more information about Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, visit the Internet Movie Database.

In addition, check out my reviews of Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and the 2016 remake Ghostbusters.