Movie Review: Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire an interesting and entertaining proposal that ends up being boring
Nostalgia in these times is so longed for and self-sacrificing that it has already become more than a fashion in Hollywood productions. Given the crisis of creativity and original ideas, it is believed that transforming something that has already been successful will repeat it again and in many cases, It is not like this.
Although there are things that should not have been touched either to modernize them or to reboot them, much less to continue them in prequels or sequels that tell us something that we are not interested in knowing, what we saw is what there is, much of this has survived the passage of time. time becoming a cult classic among locals and strangers.
Franchises go, franchises come and very few are the ones that stay and make a difference, there are others with which they no longer know what to do cases like this we have sagas like Aliens, Indiana Jones, Terminator, and very recently Ghostbusters, released in a decade of the that many are ashamed of and that others see a supposed potential success, the studies have wanted to force things to do them better with a result that is not as successful as they thought.
Ghostbusters in this case was successful only in its first installment, faced with so many scheduling problems and failed scripts, its sequel Ghostbusters 2 (1989) did not have good reviews, for years they tried to make a third part that would have its original cast but it was already too much. late to continue with these comic/paranormal adventures.
Ghostbusters Afterlife (2021) by director Jason Reitman tried to revive a franchise that had already given everything, could no longer be told beyond what we already knew, and easily resorted to nostalgia that contributes nothing and only to make us pass an entertaining time, new generation of ghostbusters was introduced to us and they have not yet been able to have their personality, the weight of their predecessors is too much and as viewers, we look for the essence of its original in this product.
In 2024 they return to the big screen with Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, a sequel directed by Gil Kenan that aims to bring even more nostalgia with a different story that can be used for future sequels.
What is the movie about?
After the events that occurred on a farm in Oklahoma, the Ghostbusters team returns to where it all began at the iconic fire station in New York, everything seems to be going fairly well when the discovery of an ancient artifact unleashes an evil force on the Spengler family. He will join forces with the old Ghostbusters to protect the city and save the world from a second ice age.
I don’t know what’s worse and sadder: advocating nostalgia or continuing to try to revive a franchise that gives them success, Sony Pictures studios have had the rights for many years and have desperately tried to bring more sequels to the big screen even with a reboot made by women that no one wants to remember, and not because this was a bad job, which it is, it is because nothing that is made can imitate but never emulate what it was.
Ghostbusters as a franchise has had endless problems, from its original cast having scheduling problems to not wanting to return if they were not complete, unfortunately for this event to happen it had to be after the death of Harold Ramis in 2014, at which time in which things began to change and they decided to participate as a tribute so that a friend, an actor, a screenwriter and a film director could have a tribute and a farewell to an audience that longed to see another story with all of them together.
The idea of modernizing and being inclusive in this saga has already been done, it has already been tried with Extreme Ghostbusters (1997), an animated series that was intended to be a direct continuation of another animated series, The Real Ghostbusters (1987) and which are part of the franchise. , the series in question presented a team of university-level young people who were taught and guided by the veteran ghostbuster Egon Spengler, such was its success that it only lasted one season of 40 episodes where we had different characters in situations recycled from their original.
Among its characters were Egon Egon Spengler a tutor of the new team, and Janine Melnitz an important character in this saga in which she is sometimes an active part as a ghost hunter, secretary, and in charge of accounting and public relations, among the “new elements” are a former student of Egon Kylie Griffin, a goth girl and the only member who had some paranormal knowledge before joining the team, Eduardo Rivera, a lazy and sarcastic boy who does not fully believe in paranormal phenomena and who has a certain analogy with Peter Venkman, Roland Jackson, the mechanic of the group, the sensible one, the mature one and the one who makes the best decisions for the team who, together with Egon, helps repair and improve the proton packs and the Ecto-1 and finally we have Garrett Miller, a disabled member of the team. who uses a wheelchair ‘but who has a very assertive, stubborn, and enthusiastic attitude even though he was born with an inability to walk and who throughout the series also makes fun of his “condition” often using the phrase “Never underestimate the ability of the disabled!” To be an inclusive character he just so happens to be the only Ghostbuster in the franchise’s merchandising history who was never made into an action figure (yeah, what a bummer).
The above is relevant because, in this new film, we have something very similar that tries to follow the pattern of this particular series, we have Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon), daughter of the deceased Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis), leader of the team and mother of the rebel and unlovable Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and the intelligent and charming Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) who together with her boyfriend Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd) have moved from the farm and quiet life of Oklahoma to the noisy and troubled Big Apple, settling in. firehouse while his friends Podcast (Logan Kim) and Lucky Domingo (Celeste O’Connor) work with Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) and millionaire ex-Ghostbuster philanthropist Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson).
Unlike the aforementioned animated series Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire tries to present and continue developing too many characters, stories, and adventures where there is time for everything except to tell the most important thing, the integration of this family as a team of Ghostbusters, something that is vaguely balanced between the new and the old and that little improves what its predecessor did not do, we see familiar images and better-structured dialogues and that at the same time moves all these characters and takes them in a very different direction.
The opening sequence occurs in New York in 1904 where a group of firefighters belonging to Hook & Ladder that occupies the current Ghostbusters headquarters goes to a very unusual call at the Manhattan Adventurers Society, there they arrive at a room where everything and They are all frozen, an emergency alert that none of them had seen before and where one of them holds a spherical artifact with a strange symbology that moves and closes containing something that they do not know what it is but that they deduce is responsible for what happened. .
From there we go to a current New York, the Spengler family aboard the Ecto-1 chase a ghost dragon from the sewers of Hell Kitchen, yes, the same neighborhood that Daredevil watches over, we can see an action and chase sequence where they make use of the technology they have, including a new trap drone that Callie handles and with which they capture the spectral creature, but this brings destruction to the city and consequences for the team, we see that a character from the original saga returns, the now mayor of the town Walter Peck (William Atherton) an old and deranged opponent of the original Ghostbusters, it is he who holds them responsible for the damage caused to the city in his pursuit, the accusations take a different turn when he questions the intervention and the work he does of Phoebe on the team as a minor.
From this point on we see too many scenes and filler sequences, while the team is out hunting ghosts which is what we as an audience want to see, and instead, we see Phoebe meet and befriend a ghost named Melody, who died in a fire with her own family when she was 16 years old and she can’t rest in peace, how exciting, a stupid subplot that doesn’t lead anywhere or contribute anything to the story, sequences like that or that advocate nostalgia is what We see tirelessly, at the beginning and on the news people express their dissatisfaction with how dangerous the actions of this team are, we see that they make a reference to the Statue of Liberty that comes to life in Ghostbusters 2, we see a television commercial and part from the official video of the song sung by Ray Parker Jr. with the question that is no longer who are you going to call but who will pay for all that destruction in the city.
The references, although very forced, look good and are a pleasure to see, but the script written by Gil Kenan, and Jason Reitman has major flaws and is more concerned with nonsense like this about Phoebe being friends with a ghost and what she does in her free time because she feels so alone and so useless outside the team until they worry about paying damages, situations that are in favor of nostalgia and that serve only to present old characters or references or situations than to establish a specific point in her story that is the solid enough to continue maintaining this franchise in popular taste.
In very little and very briefly we are told all this mythology around an ancient and evil monster that “accidentally” frees itself from the metal artifact in which it was imprisoned and that now threatens humanity with a new age of permanent ice in which captured ghosts will be free and wreak havoc on Manhattan and thus be able to spread throughout the world, while Ray, Phoebe and Podcast visit Dr. Hubert Wartzki (Patton Oswalt) in the same New York Public Library that we saw in Ghostbusters (1984) who explains to them that the spherical artifact was intended to imprison the demonic god Garraka who sought to conquer this dimension with his ability to telepathically control ghosts and can lower the temperature to absolute zero when he feeds on negative emotions such as fear.
This Garraka demon was trapped in the artifact after a battle with four sorcerers called the Fire Masters thousands of years ago and was briefly freed thousands of years later by the Manhattan Adventurers Society in 1904, which we see in the opening sequence, a Pitera society of people who, as a hobby, dedicate themselves to discovering lost objects and artifacts that supposedly have some curse or hide some magic, when free they kill their members before being recaptured by one of the direct descendants of the Fire Masters, They are told that the library houses a phonograph recording of the ritual they did at the club to free him, a ghost known as the Possessor attempts to steal the tape and is destroyed along with one of the library’s marble lions during the chase, In response to the damage caused, Mayor Peck takes over the fire station and confiscates the original equipment as well as all the gadgets, technology and information that the Ghostbusters possess.
Now this family needs to form a stronger team to stop this demon and we see long, stupid, and unnecessary scenes and sequences of them not being able to agree on who does what and who is who, the logic of how this whole paranormal invasion could happen. and unnecessary large-scale destruction causes them to consult Nadeem Razmaadi’s character (Kumail Nanjiani) and explain a complicated and equally unnecessary plan of what to do and when.
While this happens we continue to see, in what is a large part of the film, Phoebe who remains bored because she has been prohibited from hunting ghosts because she is only 15 years old and her short life could be in danger, her development as a character goes from being the bright girl, intelligent, witty, brave and brave at being lonely and boring, the relationship she has with Melody’s ghost makes us assume that there is an obvious flirtation between these characters, neither the scriptwriters nor their director and much less the film studio takes the risk. to allow a romance to occur between them, then, this subplot does not specify or contribute, nor does it go anywhere, at this point let’s remember that we are in a Ghostbusters movie, and what we want to see is that they hunt ghosts, not that some stupid romances and dramas only serve to take vital time and attention away from what concerns us.
For any of us who are old enough to have lived in the 80s and have seen the imminent and indisputable success of Ghostbusters in 1984 when it became a true phenomenon at the box office and in merchandising, this story of Phoebe seems like more that of a brat who demands rights that she does not yet have as a minor and whom the script favors too much by reminding us at every moment what her situation is, a spoiled girl from a new generation who approaches the supernatural not with amazement or ironic humor as we saw previously, but with a very implausible tantrum that is completely out of the context in which it is.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is an exercise in nostalgia, an inappropriate film with its own character arcs and uneven narrative rhythms that are evident in the huge script holes it has, and this is due to the constant changes and reshoots in which they removed sequences that They surely contribute more to what we see and further expand the general panorama that this is something new that can work as an independent saga within a dying franchise, as was the case with Jurassic World (2015) same formula but not the same interest.
The interaction of the originals with this new team and this approach and moral message that focuses more on the Spengler family at times is a rare combination, while the new ones do not yet have a defined personality, the originals follow a more concrete rethinking, Winston works as a secret, high-tech research benefactor. Ray Stantz is a gentler and more comical figure, the likable of the group, and a source of knowledge and advice for the younger ones, however, the appearance of Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) and Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts) in this new, trimmed script They don’t do much more than spout a couple of witty phrases and jokes and be a very brief part of the action, the same as the charming Slimer, seeing them again and perhaps for the last time on screen with good characters who are completely wasted here and who could have contributed more to history they remain only as a nostalgic reference to what could have been good or perhaps wonderful many years ago.
The Winks and references to the original films do not add up too much and become annoying, they divert too much of the audience’s attention from what could be a more solid and better-structured youth adventure, where everyone would have their moment to shine on screen facing each other. to new challenges like Ghostbusters, to propose that in the future these characters can contribute more and great things to their new saga that has its personality and is completely independent of everything else, that in each installment they show us something different than demons locked in paintings or artifacts or that have the shape of a marshmallow doll or that want to come to conquer and dominate this dimension from beyond, all this is what can be defined as a poorly done rehash.
The special effects and action sequences are quite simple, we see very little of what was presented in the first trailer and here those scenes were cut. We never saw them, the action, although it clearly shows us that director Gil Kenan has no I have no idea what the name GHOSTBUSTERS represents nor what Iván Reitman did at the time as director and Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis as scriptwriters, their focus is more towards rebellious youth. At the same time, one is bored the brother is an unlovable conceited, and unbearable, character who does not cause pity nor that anyone identify with them, his approach is more familiar to coexistence and adaptation. Here the question should be asked if this is more of a family and identity drama than a film of action why the fuck is it called Ghostbusters???? Mr. Kenan, what we want as an audience is to see more action, more ghosts, and something comically terrifying than stupid dramas, understand!
As expected, this team stops this demon but they learn that as a team and as a family they can get along much better as long as there is tolerance and respect, the film is left open for a possible third part with a post-credits scene involving the now little Stay Puft Marshmallow Man stealing a truck, the closing that is intended to be funny and that brings these little characters to heart.
The cast is made up of the new team: Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt, and the original team: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and Annie Potts, it is evident that in matters In terms of performances, the originals far surpass the new ones, it seems that each team was directed by different directors and that while some do what they can with what they have, the others know perfectly well what to do, we cannot say that it is a waste of talent but Yes, under a different perspective and direction things could have been much better.
The music composed by Dario Marianelli has interesting moments that evoke what has already been done by Elmer Bernstein, Randy Edelman, and Rob Simonsen with modern touches without missing the Ray Parker Jr. theme recomposed and remixed.
In conclusion, it is sad and disappointing that Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is a failed exercise in nostalgia and resorting to old characters and gags because it cannot stand on its own without a clear and concise reference to what this franchise represents. In pop culture and cinematography, a film that starts out being entertaining and ends up being boring, fails to find a balance between what it is and what it can become, a successful saga, that lives in the shadow of something that even today is unsurpassed.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is now out in theaters in our country.
