Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire review – formulaic and uninspired

Cinema has its own, unofficial version of the famous “Pepsi Challenge”, which was a ploy by the cocky marketing dept at Pepsico who once claimed that, in a blind taste test, consumers would naturally select their product over similar brown sparkling liquids. In our test, it’s the preternatural ability of the viewer to know whether they’re watching something made for TV or for cinemas based entirely on the quality of the special effects.

Which is to say, if the sfx appear slightly crummy or low-rent, the assumption would be you’re either watching TV, or a very low-budget film – which, at the end of the day, is all a reflection of budget and resource. No-one would expect WETA to be rolling out their A material for a small-screen serial, and that’s totally fine.

But with Gil Kenan’s Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, a suspiciously quick-turnaround sequel to Jason Reithman’s moderately successful Ghostbusters: Afterlife from 2021, there’s a feeling that the makers are self-consciously attempting to blur that line as far as it can be blurred. How low can we go before people start asking questions? Are these effects just about good enough to pass the cinema test, or are we out on our ear?

The answer in this instance is a big no, as this cravenly sentimental escapade scrapes by with some of the most cheap-o effects work and character design seen in a studio blockbuster for quite some time. But, of course, special effects aren’t the be-all and end-all. If the visuals are sub-par, then slack can be picked up in the screenplay and the performances, no? Technically yes, but that’s very much not the case here, with a story rehashed entirely from past adventures and a clutch of dead-eyed performances that look as if the actors are being forced to work in some kind of cine-gulag in return for millet and cloudy water.

We join the Spengler family (plus Paul Rudd’s rent-a-pop, Gary Grooberson) as they hare through New York traffic in their tricked-out Hearse, blasting at an escaped apparition with their nuclear proton packs and tearing up the landscape. A post-game dressing down by mayor Walter Peck (William Atherton, an underpowered call-back to the original film) means that Phoebe (McKenna Grace) can no longer work for the Ghostbuster Mk II due to child labour laws, and so mom Callie (Carrie Coon) and gawky son Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) must make do without her.

Then… there’s some rote business about a dormant demigod who wants to send the world (well, New York) into an infinite winter, Kumail Nanjiani doing his best impression of Rick Moranis, and the old crew returning for mandatory legacy side roles. The film’s main (sole?) highlight is a very game and sparky performance form Dan Ackroyd who is the only person on screen who seems to be investing in this world.

On the other side of the spectrum is the comedian James Acaster who crops up as a paranormal researcher called Pinfield and delivers a performance that’s wooden even for a bussed-in comedian. Wolfhard, meanwhile, seems to be giving as much effort as the writers have to his character who spends the majority of his screen time shot-gunning Cheetos and shrugging. Rudd tries his darndest to inject some life and humour into a shockingly duff screenplay, but is left to dangle.

Phoebe is given the biggest spotlight with a plot-strand involving her burgeoning friendship with a friendly ghost, yet these scenes go on for so long that they completely denigrate the drama of the incoming apocalyptic event that needs to be dealt with. 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.

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