I was very wary about this movie, perhaps mainly because I was wary about the franchise as a whole.
The original Ghostbusters from 1984 is an undoubtable bona fide comedy classic. The sequel,…I saw it once and don’t remember much from it. While I have yet to see the 2016 female reboot, the 2021 sequel Ghostbusters: Afterlife showed that, with adding some new characters, the franchise still had a little bit of,…well, life. Still, with the film being pushed back from it’s original December release (albeit due to the SAG strike) still had me less than eager to see this. Thankfully, this franchise still has not yet frozen over.
After a somewhat effective (but superfluous) teaser that occurs in 1904, the film picks up where Afterlife left off, as the daughter of Egon Spengler (the late great Harold Ramis) Callie (Carrie Coon) and her kids Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) and Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) team up with Gary (Paul Rudd) as the new Ghostbusters, despite being under the thumb of Mayor Walter Peck (William Atherton). They are funded by the works of former Ghostbuster Winston (Ernie Hudson). They are also aided at times by Ray (Dan Akroyd) and his pupil of sorts Podcast (Logan Kim).
Unlike Afterlife, what makes Frozen Empire a little more refreshing is it does not rely on story from the original film (something most people faulted The Force Awakens for). In this film, a mysterious sphere is brought to Ray’s shop by a man named Nadeem (Kumail Nanjiani, clearly acting the way he should: as if being being under the impression “OMG I’m in a Ghostbusters movie!”), which (as shown in the intro) possesses ice-like powers unlike any seen before.
A lot of the side plots are pretty basic, especially Phoebe being a teenager and not being able to do what she wants (she is taken off the Ghostbusters due to being a minor-Walter Peck is still the jerk we love to hate) and finding her only solace in (ironically) a ghost she meets named Melody (Emily Alyn Lind). Still, when seeing a Ghostbusters film, most people don’t pay much attention to the plot so much as the (somewhat poetically) spirit and mood of the film. Each of the actors here (that were not in the original film) bring the right amount of spirit and mood to the film.
Parents, the film is PG-13 mainly for the scares and swears (no F bombs). Aside from that, I did see that there were some kids in the theater with me that could not have been older than 10 or so (most likely their dad was a fan of the original) and they seemed to have a good time.
I admit I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about where the franchise goes from here (even though we no longer have Ivan Reitman or Harold Ramis, we still have Akroyd to help with another story).
Still, with just a little bit more fuel left in the tank as opposed to other franchises (looking at you, Jurassic World), when someone says there is enough for at least one more Ghostbusters film, you say yes.
Overall:
Nothing else to say 