GHOSTBUSTERS FROZEN EMPIRE MOVIE REVIEW: TIME TO SAY GOODBYE TO THIS TIRED FRANCHISE
Let’s just say that the Ghostbusters has had a good, long life, and it's about time we said our goodbyes.
In this latest iteration, Kenan, co-screenwriter with Jason Leitman, digs up some old faces, mixes in the newer ones, throws in a lot of 'P's from protons and metaphysics to paranormal and pyrokinetics, shakes them all together in more than one ghost containment unit, and hopes the skeletons that fall out of this closet are both funny — and scary.
It isn’t an easy trick to pull off, which is why the first Ghostbusters, released in 1984 – the first comedy film to call for expensive special effects – was so special.
Forty years later, the body seems tired and the spirit no more willing. The Gil Kenan version takes ages to kick off, and then is over before one can truly appreciate its end-of-the-world monster with its glowing eyes, tentacled hands and giant horns, who threatens to freeze humanity into extinction.
The Spenglers are still doing their ghostbusting thing, driving around in their ectomobile vehicle, trapping ghosts using proton packs, which dissemble the atomic bonds of the spectral beings, and depositing them into the much-burdened containment unit in the basement of the disabled fire station that serves as their home.
Push comes to shove in the ghostbusting enterprise when the aforesaid monster, captured in a super-mysterious, super-Oriental Middle Eastern orb, escapes. And then the Spenglers (Paul Rudd, Mckenna Grace and Carrie Coon) from 2021's Ghostbusters: Afterlife turn to their counterparts from Ghostbusters 1984 (Murray, Aykroyd, Hudson, Potts, Atherton).
You know how it goes, even if Ninjiani does try desperately to lighten up the historic and scientific terminology being thrown about with some home-spun truths about his “daadi”, to whom the orb with the monster belonged.
The best relationship is between Phoebe (Grace), 15, and a 16-year-old ghost called Melody whom she stumbles upon, who died in an accidental fire along with her family, and is now floating “between dimensions” trying to return to them. Grace is the find of the film and her short-lived time with Melody gives the inert proceedings some kick.
Someone talks of the horny monster having “the power to kill by fear itself”. Next time it could try the power to kill by unoriginality.
Ghostbusters Frozen Empire movie cast: Paul Rudd, Mckenna Grace, Carrie Coon, Emily Alyn Lind, Kumail Nanjiani, Bill Murray, Dann Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, William Atherton
Ghostbusters Frozen Empire movie director: Gil Kenan
Ghostbusters Frozen Empire movie rating: 2 stars
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2024-04-26T12:53:11Z dg43tfdfdgfd