"It takes a lot to make a stew," as the theme song for the 2014 short film Too Many Cook exclaims. The lyrics to that catchy ditty later proclaim that "The saying goes it'll spoil the broth/Honey, I think that's not true/Well, maybe too many cooks will spoil the broth/but they'll fill our hearts with so much, so much love." That might work just fine for that warped family sitcom, but excess doesn't work for everything. Just ask Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. Crowding this fourth entry in the Ghostbusters saga (fifth if one counts the 2016 reboot) so full of characters doesn't make the "hearts" of moviegoers swell with affection. It just leaves one walking out of the theater with an empty sensation in their stomach. A movie can say so much, yet manage to leave such a minimal impression.
Set two years after Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the descendants of Egon Spengler have moved from Oklahoma to New York City. Mother Callie (Carrie Coon) and her two kids Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) and Trevor (Finn Wolfhard), along with Callie's boyfriend Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), are now trying their best to take over the Ghostbusters mantle. Legal issues lead to the film's protagonist, Phoebe, being forced off the Ghostbusters team. Sidelined and rejected, Phoebe feels like nobody understands her. At the same time, Dr. Raymond "Ray" Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) has come into possession of an ancient orb containing some kind of evil chilly spirit. Once owned by Nadeem Razmaadi (Kumail Nanjiani), this object could eventually threaten the world. Who ya gonna call when an apocalyptic threat is on the horizon? Given that the cast of Frozen Empire also includes Afterlife characters like Podcast (Logan Kim) and veteran Ghostbuster figures like Dr. Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson), there are clearly lots of options on the table.
Credit where credit is due, Frozen Empire is an improvement on Afterlife simply because it fits its respective director's talents better. On the last Ghostbusters installment, drama movie veteran Jason Reitman was struggling to shift gears from helming Up in the Air to an often somber Amblin pastiche. Reitman is still credited with the screenplay for Frozen Empire, but now he's been replaced in the director's chair by co-writer Gil Kenan. Previously known for helming kid-friendly horror movies like Monster House, Kenan is no stranger to VFX-heavy projects and helming Goosebumps-esque projects. He lends a slightly more assured hand to the proceedings compared to Reitman's derivative filmmaking on Afterlife. A prologue depicting a bunch of firefighters circa. 1904 encountering the aftermath of a chilly ghost attack especially shows that Kenan knows his stuff on pacing scenes built on tension.
Unfortunately, Kenan isn't enough of a pro to elevate the lackluster script he and Reitman have concocted. The biggest issue at play is that this duo can't let go of the past. There's a reason Creed III, Scream 6, and even Blade Runner 2049 opted to largely ditch the cast members of old in favor of new characters. You've got to let fresh players have their day in the sun. Alas, Frozen Empire refuses to release its firm grasp on the original Ghostbusters. Familiar faces like Zeddemore and Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts) keep wandering in and out of Ghostbusters headquarters indiscriminately with no real plot or comedic purpose to serve. Talented actors (and also alleged monsters like Bill Murray) crowd this script for no other purpose than to remind older audience members that they existed. The fidelity to nostalgia leaves Frozen Empire unable to spread its creative wings.
With so many characters to service, potentially interesting plot threads get the short shrift. This is especially tragic when it comes to the most compelling element in all of Frozen Empire, Phoebe's friendship with human ghost Melody (Emily Alyn Lind). Having this teenager develop a bond with a figure from the afterlife raises so many intriguing challenges to traditional Ghostbusters lore. Are all ghosts evil? Is the very job of Ghostbusting morally acceptable? Lind and Grace's committed performances seem ready to dig into the deeper philosophical questions posed by this character dynamic. Alas, Frozen Empire's overstuffed screenplay never delves as deeply into this rapport as it should. A human befriending a ghost doesn't test the norms of this franchise at all.
Other plotlines are way more generic conceptually. For instance, too much screen time is dedicated to a derivative subplot concerning Grooberson struggling to be a dad to the angsty Phoebe. Why is there so much surrogate father/daughter schmaltz in this movie? At least the greater presence of ghosts and comedy in Reitman and Kenan's script will likely leave younger viewers satisfied. I, for one, really dug Possessor, an abstract red cloud ghost that can possess anything. What a scamp he is, turning everything from lion statues to trash bags into adversaries for our heroes. Too bad so many of those supernatural entities are around to function as set dressing for sequences of lengthy exposition. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire believes what audiences want is explanations for how ghosts work. What they really crave is to just watch weirdo spirits be chaotic.
I've been alive for 28 years on this Earth. For nearly all of them, I've watched Sony/Columbia Pictures executives flail around trying to figure out how to make new Ghostbusters installments. All those efforts have resulted in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, a painless but needlessly crowded blockbuster that one will forget the moment it's over. The fan service it delivers has been done better elsewhere. Its actors have been better served in other projects. All those years of toiling away to figure out how the Ghostbusters "brand" can endure and it's just resulted in another legacy sequel that inspires a shrug. I guess "too many cooks" did spoil this broth.
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