Reviews

Following on from the success of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the new gang and the original cast are back to bust more ghosts.

In Frozen Empire, the Spengler family – mum Callie (Carrie Coon) and teenage kids Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) and Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) – and Phoebe’s teacher-turned-stepfather Gary (Paul Rudd) are now living in the Ghostbusters’ HQ in New York City.

One day, slacker Nadeem (Kumail Nanjiani) sells his late grandmother’s ancient orb to Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) and they discover it contains a powerful supernatural force. Naturally, this evil entity manages to escape its prison and unleash its freezing powers.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is a fun and entertaining family-friendly movie but it is definitely the weakest of the bunch (including the 2016 reboot) because there are too many characters, too many storylines and the titular frozen empire comes in too late.

Because this film is chock-full of characters, nobody gets the opportunity to stand out. Rudd still does well and Nanjiani brings some comic relief, but everyone else simply does what they need to do to push the plot forward.

It doesn’t help that the script doesn’t give them many chances to be funny. There are some laughs here and there but it doesn’t live up to the comedy standards of the previous chapters.

Also, the film doesn’t arrive at the Frozen Empire situation until the final 30 minutes and the resolution is really poor, giving us a seriously anticlimactic final act that might leave you feeling bewildered as the credits roll.

But there are plenty of positives – there is a sweet family drama in there about Gary finding his footing with the Spengler children, Aykroyd has a substantial role integral to the plot, and some of the ghosts are actually a bit scary.

Overall, there is much to enjoy about this latest Ghostbusters instalment, but it’s a shame it didn’t manage to successfully balance the old and the new and all the storylines and characters.

In cinemas from Friday 22nd March.

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