‘I’ll be sixteen for the rest of eternity…’
I went into legacy sequel Ghostbusters: Afterlife really wanting to like it but in the end I hated that movie a lot. A lot. It’s not funny. It’s not scary. It doesn’t feel like a Ghostbusters movie. Without wanting to sound ungrateful, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, the fifth Ghostbusters movie and the fourth on this timeline, perhaps goes too far the other way. This is the Force Awakens of Ghostbusters movies. Give the fans the ‘member berries and watch them gobble them up like Slimer eating a bag of Cheetos…
No messing about in Oklahoma this time. We are back in New York. We are back in the old firehouse. ECTO-1. Proton packs. This is your grandfather’s Ghostbusters reborn and repackaged. I hate the fact that the once great adversary the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man is reduced to a cynical attempt to sell toys here but what I hate most of all is that I also kinda love the idea of a bunch of mini marshmallow men running around the place and getting into scrapes. Little scamps. Everybody from Afterlife returns as well as a stacked supporting cast of new characters as portrayed by James Acaster, Patton Oswalt, Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Alyn Lind.
Crucially, Frozen Empire is both funny and scary. Not all the time and not a patch on the original, but enough to reignite some of the spark. It is a thrill to see these characters running around New York again, and the new faces bring a lot to the table, particularly Nanjiani who has all the funniest lines. It helps that Paul Rudd commits this time and once we get all the boring exposition out of the way in the opening 15 minutes, Frozen Empire clips along at a pleasingly thrilling pace. It’s always great to see a major city destroyed and while we don’t get enough of that here (this is a very insular film, we rarely see the impact on the average New Yorker), there are enough big set pieces to justify the entrance fee.
Frozen Empire drops all the annoying shit that hampered Afterlife and instead focuses on just making a good Ghostbusters movie, a recognisable Ghostbusters movie, and while there is still a strong argument to suggest that Ghostbusters is a film that required zero sequels rather than the four sequels we currently have, there is no denying that Frozen Empire is a huge improvement on what came directly before and is generally an enjoyable Sunday afternoon flick. Also. Bill Murray. Need I say more?
