Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Review
"Golden years..." Ray Stantz
Putting all my cards on the table, I admit this is a film I’ve been looking forward to. Back in the day, I enjoyed Ghostbusters, and its sequel. I skipped the remake with Melissa McCarthy, because I consider her to be a one note comedy actress. Unless she’s clumsily gurning her way through a role, she’s unable to bring anything else to the table due to her lack of talent. Ghostbusters: Afterlife, I really enjoyed – and this is where the story, well, the current one anyway, starts.
I thought that Afterlife did an awesome job of acknowledging and paying homage to the original Ghostbusters, while sidestepping the fact that the remake/reboot ever happened. This is despite the fact that Afterlife, was itself, kind of a reboot. It had a lot of ground to cover, not the least of which was the fact that sadly, original Ghostbuster and writer Harold Ramis had passed away. Boldly and wisely, the creative direction was kind of Ghostbusters: The Next Generation, set away from their usual stomping ground of New York City in a rural location, which give the new characters room to bed in, while facing a familiar menace but with support from the original cast. It was a textbook exercise in building a new world on the foundations of the old.
My big question going in to Frozen Empire was simple; would they keep the momentum going, or would they blow it?
A sting at the end of Afterlife revealed the direction of this new film, where the action would take place in New York, as Ghostbuster Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) had bought the old firehouse that was the Ghostbusters HQ, and we saw a warning light flashing on the basement containment facility where they kept all the trapped spiritual entities.
Starting with a flashback to 1904 and an unexplained case where a roomful of people is literally frozen to death in the middle of summer. Back to the present day our new Ghostbuster team of Gary Gooberson (Paul Rudd) and the Spengler family, Callie (Carrie Coon) Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and child prodigy Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) swing into action on the city streets in the ECTO-1, chasing down the spectral Hell’s Kitchen Sewer Dragon and causing a massive amount of property damage as the go. This and the following scene, were they’re having to explain themselves to the city mayor, Quentin Peck (William Atherton returning to his role as a pompous city official for the first time since the original movie). Peck, as ever, wants the Ghostbusters shut down. This was the point I decided what the score I was awarding this film was going to be. And we were only around ten minutes into the movie.
Rudd and company are an easy fit into the Ghostbusters continuity, this isn’t a laboured reworking of what has gone before, this is fresh. Rudd brings in a likeable everyman quality to the fantastic situations he’s put into. As with the last time, the real revelation among the contemporary team is Mckenna Grace as Phoebe Spengler, having inherited her grandfather’s massive intellect.
The originals, of course, are never too far away, and having wisely limited them to more or less cameo roles in Afterlife, this was actually more than fan service to keep us old timers quietly satisfied, their roles made sense within the story and allowed the series to move forward. They have more to do this time, which again makes sense, as we’re back in New York. Dan Aykroyd as Ray Stantz is integral to the plot, and his presence on the screen is, I think a pleasant reassurance that the Ghostbusters movies truly are back. I’ve heard criticism that Bill Murray just kind of shows up and mutters his Bill Murrayesque lines. And that’s true. It’s exactly what he does, but my counter argument is that this is what he has ALWAYS done. He never actually “acts” as such – he just ambles in, mumbles his Bill Murray laconic lazy wiseass lines and wanders away. His strength is that his Peter Venkman is the perfect counterpoint to Aykroyd’s excitable and enthusiastic Stantz.
The big bad this time is an ancient god named Garraka with the power not only to control other ghosts, but to literally freeze anything by dropping the temperature to absolute zero. He was imprisoned by four Fire Masters, but now is free – and he wants to release all the old ghosts from the Ghostbuster containment facility.
In Afterlife, I felt I had seen everything I had hoped to see in a contemporary Ghostbusters movie, and I reviewed it on my old site, which if you click here, you can see. This time around, I think they’ve upped the ante and continued to build and move forward in the spirit of the original, which this year, celebrates its 40th anniversary.
Not all critics see it this way, I see the UK Daily Telegraph’s Robbie Collin writes; “There is a noxious undead pong emanating from this latest entry in the 1980s franchise, which is now being necromantically sustained through force of sheer commercial desperation, and nothing else.” (Jesus, Robbie – lighten up.) But seriously my advice is to ignore the high-handed smugness of such reviews, go and have a good time.
Rob Rating = 10