Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

As I've become a bit more protective of my time and the movies that I go see in theaters, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire was almost another 2024 film that I was going to skip, potentially catching on streaming later. 

Everything about it - from the title to the poster to the marketing - felt lazy and generic. A sequel for the sake of a sequel from 2021's solid reboot. Needless to say, my expectations were low.

I enjoyed the aforementioned reboot well enough. I couldn't tell you what happened plot-wise, but I do remember it being funnier than expected with an impressive cast of authentic characters. 

Luckily for Frozen Empire, those latter points remain very true, and are the key reasons I enjoyed this more than I anticipated (as did the majority of my audience). The plot, while still nothing special, does get points for effectively building up a villain, even if the final payoff is rushed. I also continue to appreciate what it does with this family's dynamic, even if its smaller scale. 

What remains most true about this sequel, and is the reason my pending disappointment quickly evaporated, is the cast of characters. Sure, you have the old ghostbusters with performances from Aykroyd, Hudson, and Murray. Aykroyd does the most heavy lifting out of that trio and largely they're all fine. The MVP continues to be Mckenna Grace's Phoebe and - much like the first - the core plot revolves around her, all for the better. Truly, it's kind of impressive that a franchise has [mostly] been placed on her shoulders. Paul Rudd and Carrie Coon as the "parents" both get their moments (though Coon feels pretty underused) while Finn Wolfhard, Celeste O'Connor, and Logan Kim from the first film all have smaller parts, but are still amusing. The best newcomer is a pretty big one: Kumail Nanjiani as a loser who finds out he has fire powers. Nanjiani feels eager and excited to the play the role, and delivers many of the film's best laughs with ease. And while there's not a whole lot of laugh-out-loud, bust-your-gut humor, there's enough laughs consistently that amuse where I was thoroughly entertained. The baby Stay-Pufts return and yeah...they're a gimmick...but their self-mutilating joy gets me every time. 

Frozen Empire feels like a marketing miss rather than a movie misfire, which is a good thing. While it would still fall under the moniker of "generic sequel", it's one that has enough going for it where I left the sub-2-hour runtime far more entertained than I was expecting. As someone who isn't all that tied to this franchise, for me to say "I would watch another one of these", even if it's just to see how Mckenna Grace's character evolves, that's the sign of a sequel that did its job. 

Rapid Rath's Review Score | 7/10