The Reel Review
This fifth installment in the Ghostbusters supernatural comedy franchise has the Spengler family, the descendants of one of the original ghostbusters, now living at the iconic New York City fire station headquarters where they find themselves in a battle to save humanity after an ancient artifact unleashes an evil force intent on freezing the entire planet. Paul Rudd, Mckenna Grace, Carrie Coon and Finn Wolfhard star.
After 2021’s more nostalgic Ghostbusters: Afterlife, this film returns to its sillier, comic roots – but between the Spengler family, a laundry list of returning original cast members – Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts and William Atherton as the now-Mayor Walter Peck – and several teenagers from the last film – Celeste O’Connor as Lucky and Logan Kim as Podcast – this sequel feels more like a bloated, Night of a Thousand Ghostbusters – many of them with very little, if anything, to contribute to the often dull, mediocre story.
The bright spots in the film are Mckenna Grace as (the potentially lesbian?) ghostbuster Phoebe, Emily Alyn Lind (Gossip Girl, The Babysitter) as the ghost she befriends and Kumail Nanjiani as the comic relief and unlikely hero. But for a film about ghostbusting, the aimless story from director Gil Kenan and Jason Reitman (son of the original film’s director Ivan Reitman) is also disappointingly light on ghosts, making this a serviceable but also unmemorable entry into the Ghostbusters canon.
REEL FACTS
• The exterior shots of the firehouse were filmed at Hook & Ladder 8, an active firehouse in New York City’s Tribeca neighborhood. A replica of the Ghostbusters sign hangs outside year-round.
• Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is dedicated to Ivan Reitman, the director of the first two Ghostbusters films who died in February 2022.
• This is the first Ghostbusters film not to include Sigourney Weaver.
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