Warning: The following contains minor spoilers for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.
The Ghostbusters have returned once more in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, but unfortunately, the results feel lacking. Filled with too many characters, too much setup and not enough funny jokes, Frozen Empire sure has a lot happening. But it feels overly busy and unfocused, while also begging the question… shouldn’t these Ghostbusters actually be seen busting some more ghosts?
The previous film, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, offered an enjoyable Amblin-meets-Ghostbusters approach, which notably went out of its way to set itself apart by moving the franchise to a farmland setting, as the story involved the family of the late Egon Spengler inadvertently leading the Ghostbusters to being reformed by the film’s conclusion. Now, in Frozen Empire, we’re back in New York and back in the firehouse headquarters with this new group suited up and packing proton packs. The likable Phoebe (McKenna Grace), Trevor (Finn Wolfhard), Callie (Carrie Coon), and Gary (Paul Rudd) are the new Ghostbusters team, and they’re on the case – except we don’t really get to see that.
Sure, the film begins with a fun sequence, as the new team drives Ecto-1 through the streets of Manhattan, chasing a ghost. But there’s no setup to any of this and the chase itself feels like a city-set redux of the clever chase sequence in Afterlife. How about including the team actually arriving on the scene and speaking to whoever was being haunted as they (and thus the audience) learn more of the specifics of what’s been going on?
Instead, from that truncated introduction, the film’s storyline has Phoebe nearly immediately benched from the team due to her young age, now left behind as the others go on missions that we don’t follow along on either. There’s one quick scene where Phoebe and Podcast (Logan Kim) sneak out together after taking a call from someone at a restaurant who’s spotted a ghost, but it’s over in a flash – and not truly a new client/new ghost scenario, since it ends up tying into a subplot Phoebe is already involved in.
From the get-go, a central conceit around Ghostbusters was meant to be that they were the paranormal version of a plumber or technician – someone you call to solve a vexing issue in your home or business that requires a certain skill set beyond the average person’s expertise. As Dan Aykroyd explained to Esquire in 2019, “They were like vacuum cleaner or elevator repairmen, or firemen. The idea was to have them blend into the urban landscape. Calling a Ghostbuster was just like getting rats removed.”
The rightfully beloved original movie conveyed this aspect well, as we follow the Ghostbusters investigating reports of paranormal activity at the New York Public Library, the Sedgewick Hotel, and a high-rise apartment building, while getting a ton of comedy out of seeing what it’s like for them to interact with various clients and those clients’ respective reactions both to finding out they have a ghost in their midst and to the quirky attitude of the Ghostbusters themselves. Plus, we get glimpses of plenty of other jobs they’re going on during the film via the magic and majesty of a montage sequence!
But the franchise since has frustratingly seemed to avoid this core element whenever possible. Ghostbusters II begins with the team disbanded before a courtroom scene turns into a sort of de facto Ghostbusters job that reunites them, which at least sets up another epic montage. However, we’re not really given any full scenes of them being called in by different clients during the second film, but rather their time is spent continually investigating one overall “mood slime” scenario.
The 2016 reboot film, which involved a “how the team was formed” setup like the original, did have its fair share of Ghostbusters-on-the-case bits, but its polarizing reception led to the return to the original continuity. And yes, again, as a movie doing something different by design, it makes sense that Afterlife doesn’t have Ghostbusters taking cases since we were following a bunch of rural kids who most certainly were not Ghostbusters yet.
But why can’t this series still get back to its true roots? Not roots in terms of familiar characters and settings, which it’s becoming too reliant on, but roots in terms of the overall feel. The third act of the original film went big on lore and scale, with Gozer, the Keymaster, and the Gatekeeper of it all and it was obviously a blast. But that’s because it was the escalation of the one-off ghost scenarios the film was built up with. But the last two movies have been rather lore obsessed start to finish, with Afterlife bringing back Gozer and now Frozen Empire introducing a new, ancient frosty menace that occupies so much screen time to set up and explain that it’s at the expense of seeing the Ghostbusters do their actual day-to-day job.
And yet it still feels like time is wasted. Why have so much of Trevor’s storyline in Frozen Kingdom be about trying to catch Slimer inside the firehouse when we could instead see him out on assignments and perhaps then encounter Slimer, if you want that nostalgia pop? Why do Gary and Callie vanish for a large portion of the middle of the film, presumably interacting with clients, when we could see them working cases too? One answer is because the film is juggling too many characters – including nearly everyone from both the original film and Afterlife – and also a ton of scenes involving figuring out what’s going on with a sphere Aykroyd’s Ray Stantz has been sold that’s key to the central storyline. But it feels like there was a way to pare all these elements way down, remove some of these characters, and still actually show the Ghostbusters doing their job while also leading towards their big confrontation with a certain Frozen Empire-causing dude by the finale.
We know this recipe can be pulled off since they did it once 40 years ago. If the question is “Who you gonna call?” then isn’t it time we get to meet more of the people actually making those calls? And then see the Ghostbusters probably mess up their place, naturally.
Oh, and also, bring back a Ghostbusters-on-the-job montage sequence, dang it! Those things are great.
For even more on the new film, check out our Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire ending explained or read our review!