Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire film review — return of the paranormal-zappers offers cold comfort

The revival of the Ghostbusters franchise got off to a false start in 2016 with an all-female relaunch that attracted the ire of the original film’s more blinkered male fans. Jason Reitman — son of series founding director Ivan Reitman — started again with a family-targeted agenda in 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and returns as co-writer with director Gil Kenan on Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.

Here, the new two-generational ghoul-chasing team (Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace) move to New York and the old team’s HQ, and battle an Ancient Entity with uncanny refrigerative powers. About the drollest touch is that it begins with a poem by Robert Frost.  

This is cumbersomely cluttered stuff: too many ghouls, too much exposition, too many shifts of tone between dippy jokiness and gee-you-guys sincerity, and way too many characters, all following their own plot threads towards yet another laborious apocalypse.

Rudd goes through his usual doofus/hunk moves fetchingly enough but Coon, a properly formidable performer, is grievously wasted. Meanwhile some familiar faces — the legacy ’Busters — are on hand, notably Dan Aykroyd, doing his avuncular stuff with palpable relish, and Bill Murray, just about mustering some weary affability.

Making the most out of this mess is Mckenna Grace as Phoebe Spengler, now 15 and the smartest and most intrepid of the new team — and very much discovering herself, in a well-meaning teen-angst subplot. Her story involves befriending a young phantom played by Emily Alyn Lind, with strong hints of spectral girl-girl romance; it’s all pretty mechanical, and yet the one part of the movie that actually feels alive. Indeed, Grace is by far the best here, showing the same kind of twitchy emotional energy that first got Kristen Stewart noticed; her and Lind’s interplay is the only remotely blithe spirit on show.

★★☆☆☆

In cinemas from March 22