For the Love of Slimer, Please Stop Making ‘Ghostbusters’ Movies

Few legacy sequels are as depressingly unimaginative as 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, what with its dreary blend of hip young Gen-Z kids (including a boy named Podcast, for maximum under-18 appeal!) and paycheck-motivated old timers, as well as its gross use of CGI to resurrect the late Harold Ramis for squishy across-the-universe bathos. Helmed by Jason Reitman, son of the original films’ director Ivan, it bleakly connected its story to its predecessors, got the band back together (Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Ernie Hudson) alongside a collection of new members (precocious teens, Paul Rudd, and Carrie Coon), and squeezed the last drops of nostalgia from a beloved (if past-its-prime) property, all while forgetting that what made Ghostbusters such a unique hit in 1984 was that it was a comedy dressed up like a supernatural thriller, not the other way around.

And now, as ordained by the great and terrible circle of IP life, it has its own dispiriting follow-up.

Directed by Gil Kenan, who co-wrote its script with Reitman, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, premiering Mar. 22, rights the course of this wayward series insofar as it wholly ditches Oklahoma in order to situate its action in Manhattan, where it can spend time in the Ghostbusters’ firehouse HQ and stage scenes of the Ecto-1 racing through bustling city streets after screaming and whooshing specters. Otherwise, however, this return engagement is another sloppy and mirthless adventure that prioritizes action and family drama over humor—a state of affairs that’s exacerbated by the lack of suspense or excitement generated by this latest tussle between the multigenerational Ghostbusters and an undead foe bent on annihilation. So lamely modernized that it fully transforms its mini–Stay Puft Marshmallow Men into de facto Minions (all high-pitched gibberish and goofy hijinks), it’s a retro-contemporary rehash of the feeblest kind.

Having moved to the Big Apple to take up her dad’s trade, Callie Spengler (Coon) and her two kids Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) feel best when busting ghosts, as does Callie’s boyfriend Gary Grooberson (Rudd), who’s trying to figure out the parameters of his paternal role in this clan. Following a tussle with a phantom dragon that leaves a good bit of the metropolis in ruins, the heroes are roundly chastised by old Ghostbusters nemesis Walter Peck (William Atherton), who’s now New York’s mayor and who singles out 15-year-old Phoebe for being too young to assume proton pack responsibilities. This results in Phoebe being benched, and strains her relationship with her mom and Gary, this despite the latter’s efforts to form a father-daughter bond with the budding genius.

Alone in the park playing chess one evening, Phoebe is joined by a ghostly partner whom she initially assumes is her grandfather but turns out to be Melody (Emily Alyn Lind), who perished years ago in a tenement fire and longs to pass on so she can reunite with her relatives. They quickly strike up a romantic rapport that Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire never overtly articulates, and which proves to be one of numerous thin threads handled by this unwieldy contraption, whose focus is as unsteady as the particle beams emanating from the Ghostbusters’ signature weapon. As Phoebe yearns to exist on the same dimensional plane as Melody—a wish that factors into one of the plot’s most dim-witted developments—the entire team receives a tour from OG Ghostbusters and current benefactor Winston Zeddemore (Hudson) of a new research facility where they’re housing ghosts like zoo animals and have doohickeys that can safely separate spooks from the inanimate objects they possess.

That techno-ability comes in handy when Ray Stantz (Aykroyd) and his sidekick Podcast (Logan Kim) show up with an antique orb that Ray purchased on the cheap from clownish man-child Nadeem (Kumail Nanjiani). This relic is brimming with paranormal energy, turns everything fatally frosty, and houses an entity that seems particularly interested in the Ghostbusters’ containment unit. A trip by Ray and company to the New York Public Library leads to reunions with additional familiar faces (alive and deceased) as well as an explanation from a folklore expert (Patton Oswalt) about the ancient horned deity who wants to raise a vengeful army of the dead. Kenan and Reitman tease this baddie’s arrival for what feels like an ice age, and when he finally materializes, he’s just a lame CGI boogeyman better fit for a 2005-era video game cutscene than a 2024 major motion picture.

Also participating in these shopworn shenanigans is Murray, albeit as little as appears to have been humanely (or contractually) possible. Aside from briefly conducting a question-and-answer science experiment on Nanjiani that’s modeled after his introductory Ghostbusters scene, the legendary comedian doesn’t partake in this affair until its finale, when he struts into the frame in his classic uniform, tosses off a couple of halfhearted one-liners, and fades into the background. How Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire manages to botch Murray’s years-later meeting with Atherton’s “dickless” sleazeball is difficult to comprehend, and yet here the film is, speeding past the moment in order to get to a mid-credits coda in which the bite-size Stay Puft troublemakers make a pitch for their own feature-length spin-off.

There are so many characters in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire that some—like Coon’s buzzkill mom Callie, Wolfhard’s afterthought Trevor, and Trevor’s featureless buddy Lucky (Celeste O’Connor)—simply fall by the wayside. Kenan does his best to juggle his various concerns but the problem with an endeavor such as this is that striving to both carve out a novel path with fresh protagonists and play the greatest hits with fan-favorite vets only shortchanges everything, including basic plot cohesion and momentum. It all resembles a lot of cosplaying, although its central failing is foregrounding cacophonous mayhem and middling melodrama over the drollness that defined the first two Ghostbusters movies. One might easily excuse a franchise installment for not being aesthetically cutting edge or narratively plausible. Squandering a group of generally funny stars in a middling go-round that cares more about family friendly schmaltz and digi-sound and fury than consistent and solid jokes, however, is akin to a death knell.