“When it comes through your door

Unless you just want some more,

I think you better call Ghostbusters.” 

That pretty much sums up how I feel about the new film, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.   Leaning heavily on the nostalgia factor, it’s sweetened for those that who sang “busting makes me feel good” with the 1984’s OGs.  But please, I’m calling on ALL the Ghostbusters, past and present, to put the final specter into the wall-mounted Ecto-Containment System, Storage Facility and Protection Grid, hang up your proton packs and call it a day. I really, really don’t want some more.

I mean, come on, when even Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd) and Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon) feel comfortable mocking their own theme song, it’s time to stop crossing the streams.

Mckenna Grace definitely carries the bulk of the busting load in Frozen Empire.  She sparkles, she’s sullen, she’s relatable.  Her Phoebe Spengler feels she’s all grown up, having previously saved the world from a spectral takeover.  Yet Gary, Callie and brother Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) still see her as a kid.  Which, naturally, 2024’s target audience of young teens will relate to.  

In trouble every time she turns around, even ending up in jail, simply because she loves busting ghosts with the adults.  Phoebe is also definitely lonely, living in a firehouse, seeing herself as weird and nerdy.  She ventures out into the adult world, sneaking around, poking a toe in a fiery relationship that is certainly doomed from the start. A relationship that might just end her life.

Kumail Nanjiani’s cast as the out-of-work, living in his dead Grandmother’s apartment and selling her collectibles Nadeem Razmaadi.  He tries and partially succeeds in harnessing the sexual innuendos that made the scenes between Signorney Weaver’s Zuul The Gatekeeper and Rick Moranis’ Clortho The Keymaster so hysterically memorable in 1984.  Razmaadi learns he is a Firemaster, which is sort of like an Airbender, but with the ability to control great balls of fire.  

However, this firestarter doesn’t have a foil to play against, unless you consider the Icebringer, an evil, horned spirit who has been freed from his ancient metallic jail and is intent on settling a permanent chill on all the citizens of NYC… and beyond the Brooklyn Bridge.  But seducing the enemy is NOT where the writers went this time.

Patience and Fortitude even make an appearance in Frozen Empire.  The Public Library’s beloved big marble cats are enlivened, and are once again spitting and snarling their outrage toward lowly humans. Naturally, cats gonna cat.  And you can’t have a Ghostbusters without the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man and Slimer, who are definitely running amok among the weird science.

Yes, the OG are back, some in body, some in spirit.  The love for all the characters is nuzzled along by co-writer Jason Reitman, son of OG Ivan Reitman, who previously directed Ghostbusters: Afterlife, with Gil Kenan, who is also the director of Frozen Empire.  But please, it’s been 30 years.  Let the dead stay dead.