What... what are we even doing here?
I’ll admit, I had my doubts about writing this review. Complaining about Ghostbusters movies online invites comparison to a certain breed of internet troll who—whether they exist in significant numbers or not—most people seem to agree are the societal equivalent of those clumps of hair that block your shower drain. For this reason I will state my stance on the Ghostbusters series up front:
I do not care about Ghostbusters.
So there, now you know I’m not some basement-dweller (nothing wrong with living in a basement these days I might add—there are times I’d have killed for a basement) who thinks that ‘woke’ is ruining cinema. I simply do not care enough about this series to have formed any strong opinions about it.
This isn’t me taking some moral high ground, by the way. It’s all the movies’ fault. Again and again I’ve given this series the chance to make me a fan, and every time it fails. I hear some of you asking why I even bothered to see the latest Ghostbusters movie, if that’s how I feel.
Same reason that guy climbed Everest, baby: because I’d already seen every other movie the cinema was showing, and I was bored.
Unfortunately, I remained bored throughout and was still bored afterwards, hence this review. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is the sequel to Afterlife, a movie which I’ve been told I saw when it came out, but I couldn’t remember any of these characters. The problem, I think, is that there are too damn many of them, and most of them are kids…
There’s the mom character; the smart daughter character called Phoebe; the Finn Wolfhard character; the Paul Rudd character who I thought was the kids’ dad but it turns out he was their science teacher and is now dating the mom; the kid called ‘Podcast’ for some reason; the girl that is interning with the company that funds the Ghostbusters who is friends with Finn Wolfhard; the Kumail Nanjiani character; the James Acaster character; the three remaining living Ghostbusters; and finally, the lady who was the original Ghostbusters’ secretary back in the day. Oh, and there’s a ghost girl and a Patton Oswald character and a bad ghost that’s the villain. (And Slimer. For some reason.)
The film has no clue how to balance so many characters. Their stories bounce and rattle of each other with all the planned precision of a game of pinball. There is no flow to them, and often it felt like twenty or thirty minutes would go by without a peep from characters I had assumed would be pivotal the story, like Paul Rudd’s character, or Kumail Nanjiani’s.
The only character with any kind of arc is Phoebe, and credit where credit is due, Mckenna Grace is a great young actress, and actually managed to make me care a little about her predicament—having a crush on the ghost girl—even though I was completely baffled by the choice to have this be a primary storyline in a Ghostbusters movie.
It still feels so weird to me that these movies have transitioned from being about a bunch of dysfunctional schmuks trying to make a quick buck from ghost-hunting, to trying to be a heart-warming family adventure movie. I’m not a huge fan of the original Ghostbusters movie, but the bits I do enjoy were are sleazy bits. Not belabour the point, but wasn’t that the appeal of Ghostbusters? That they were total weirdos? Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, on the other hand, feels so scared to make any of its characters even a little dislikeable.
So, yes, they should’ve cut most of the characters out of this movie. I am not exaggerating when I say that you could literally remove all of them from the script and have it be completely unchanged, bar Phoebe. I have no earthly clue why they needed so many of them. Surely one is enough to appeal to younger audiences, as was certainly their goal? The more I think about it, the more I think the much better movie would’ve been to have Mckenna Grace, Paul Rudd, Kumail Nanjiani, and Patton Oswalt just be this movie’s Ghostbusters and leave it like that. Nanjiani got a few chuckles out of me, and I know Rudd and Oswalt have the ability to be hilarious, even if they didn’t get a chance to be here. As it is, their talent is totally wasted.
I’m not even going to go into details on the plot. It’s nonsense, which would be fine for Ghostbusters, but in this case it’s particularly contrived nonsense. You can see the writers pulling the strings at every turn. The characters are not driving the story here. Needless lore-heavy exposition is dropped on us to explain the film’s antagonist, going into a level of detail that the writers probably thought was cool and fleshed things out, but this is Ghostbusters for heaven’s sake. Ghostbusters! Why are you spoon-feeding me the backstory of Grizzlo the Guzzler when you’re supposed to making me laugh.
Urgh.
Alright, I’m done. Maybe there’s more to say about this movie, but thinking about it for much longer will just make me sad about the state of Hollywood blockbusters. (Isn’t it crazy that that term used to have positive connotations?) As strange as it is, though, I don’t want Ghostbusters to go away forever. The concept still has potential. They just need to hand complete creative control to some freaks with a weird sense of humour. The ‘Please Don’t Destroy’ guys, maybe. Or Lord and Miller. Anything but this again.
Please, God, anything but this.
***
Thanks for reading my Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire review. If you liked it, consider buying me a cup of coffee at https://ko-fi.com/kieranobrien
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