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The Ghostbusters ain't afraid of no ghost, but perhaps they should fear their Rotten Tomatoes score for the latest sequel, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire — the film sits at a measly 44% as of Wednesday morning.
Critics are unenthused by the latest entry in the franchise, technically the fourth Ghostbusters film in the timeline started back in 1984 with the original Ghostbuster smash hit. Many felt Ghostbusters was reinvigorated by 2021's Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which neatly tied together the original characters to don the proton packs with a new generation, and was helmed by Jason Reitman, son of the legendary Ivan Reitman, who directed the original.
But now it seems like the franchise has taken a step backwards, judging by critical reception thus far.
Top critic Tim Grierson from Screen International says, “The clumsy mixture of nostalgia, scares, set pieces, sincerity and wisecracks never gels, tempting a conclusion that it is perhaps time for Sony to give up this particular ghost.”
Robbie Collin from the Daily Telegraph was even harsher, lamenting that “there is a noxious undead pong emanating from this latest entry in the 1980s franchise, which is now being necromantically sustained through force of sheer commercial desperation, and nothing else.”
ClutchPoints' own film reviewer, Matthew Schuchman, felt there were too many characters and too much story to service in this installment. He writes, “Trying to summarize all the events and players in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is nearly impossible. The wind-up to the actual story is so long. Stuffing the events with too much story in the two-hour runtime is only exasperated by poorly described plot points.”
David Jenkins from Little White Lies issued the concerning warning, “Everything about the film is undercooked and lazy, and one is led to hope that this franchise is put back in the deep freeze for a very long time.”
However, not everyone thought it was gloom and doom for the paranormal police.
Richard Roeper from the Chicago Sun-Times said, “While ‘Frozen Empire' sometimes overdoes it with the 21st-century green-screen stuff, and there are a few lags in the action around the midway point, this is a big and boisterous and just plain fun amusement park ride of a movie.”
Similarly, Clarisse Loughrey from The Independent declared, “Frozen Empire is a notable improvement on Afterlife – funny, silly, and a little scary, with its pockets full of hand-built doodahs and the occasional excursion into the realm of pseudo-mythology and parapsychology.”
Variety seemed to like the new character additions, with Owen Gleiberman explaining, “‘Frozen Empire' has enough going on in it to connect, but now that Jason Reitman and company have brought this series back to life, it’s time to re-infuse it with the spirit that Kumail Nanjiani brings.”
Although ScreenCrush's Matt Singer may have said it best in trying to guess the rationale behind making the new film. “Feels like it exists as a studio imperative first — ‘Make a Ghostbusters movie with the cast of the old movies and the cast of the new movie!' — and a compelling story a very distant second.”
Sounds like Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire may offer a few bits of enjoyment for diehard fans of the franchise, but for everyone else this may be one ghoul best left in the ghost trap.
