By Marc S. Sanders
When you make a new installment in a long-celebrated franchise, going on forty years, you have to reinvent the base material to keep it fresh and new. I think the Jurassic Park/World movies are fun, but don’t they also feel like carbon copies of each other by this point? I mean how much can you broaden the adventures that come with dinosaurs? The roar, they run, they eat.
With the Ghostbusters films, there’s more flexibility in what you can do. You can replace Saturday Night Live players with a fun, lovable leading man like Paul Rudd and he can team up with some brainy kids to fend off ghosts in the best movie jungle there is, New York City. However, why drain all of the comedy out of the burger?
The ongoing teenage troubles of the latest reinvention of the Reitman/Ramis/Aykroyd property hinges on so much teen angst that ghosts and ghouls only appear after we’ve endured one Breakfast Club moment after another. Sadly, there aren’t many spooky critters roaming around the metro area anymore. Who you gonna call? Doesn’t feel like we need to call anybody, really.
Here’s the pyramid food chain of Frozen Empire. 1) Sad, frustrated teens 2) Inevitable cameos of the celebrated heroes of the first two movies 3) Ghosts. This movie needs to reexamine its priorities.
The main storyline is carried by McKenna Grace as Egon’s granddaughter Phoebe who is grounded by Walter Peck aka Mr. Pecker aka Dickless (William Atherton). I’m referencing what this guy is remembered as because the movie fails to do so. Phoebe is a minor. Therefore, she can’t hunt after ghosts and thus builds a relationship with a sixteen-year-old friend named Melody (Emily Alyn Lind) who appears in the form of blue supernatural lighter fluid. Melody died in a fire. Sooooooo…much of these two young ladies’ sad sleepover conversations populate the film.
Then there is Dan Aykroyd returning as Ray to enlighten some back story on the main monster we can expect to appear in the third act. He’s performing like an R.L. Stine adult in a second-rate Nickelodeon kid’s picture though. Ray Stanz was always the guy who had loony science on his mind, but the comedy of the character shown through with Aykroyd’s boyish naïveté. Remember how excited Ray was to go down the fire pole or when he thought up the giant marshmallow man? What about when he talked back to the pink slime in the first sequel? It was downright ridiculous and now Ray is a midlife crisis depressant.
Bill Murray is collecting a paycheck again. The character is the same with the comedian’s special sarcasm, but if he’s in this film longer that ten minutes it’s a lot and he utters no more than five lines. He serves one purpose to Frozen Empire – to be in the advertisements and draw a crowd. Paul Rudd and Bill Murray have done two Ghostbusters and an Ant-Man movie together and somehow, they still have yet to share a great exchange of dialogue. For the third time in four years, Rudd and Murray seem to be unaware that they are both members of SAG working on the same project. If I ever need to deliver the argument that there is a lack of good writers working today, I’ll use these missed opportunities as an example of what I mean.
Annie Potts wears the nerdy glasses, but I don’t remember a thing she says. Ernie Hudson as Winston plays the financier of the modern Ghostbusters, but there’s nothing special going on with him. Even the librarian from that fantastic opening of the 1984 film appears. He talks to Ray for a moment and that’s it.
Why are these people here? Just so we can say “Uh! Look who it is!!!” C’mon! Surely, there’s something better to be spun here.
Part of the plot involves the threat that the storage container of all the ghosts ever captured over the years will be breaking down soon and set all of the paranormal prisoners free. That’s brilliant!!! Yet, why doesn’t the movie capitalize on that????? We are threatened by this terrible scenario over and over with music of impending doom and glances at a digital monitor. Can the thing just break already?
We see the slimer green ghost blob under a pile of candy wrappers in the attic. Not bad. Where are the other ghosts we had become familiar with? Remember the cab driver, or the angelic apparition that seduced Ray in his sleep? Where are they? I’d rather see these guys than a boring Dan Aykroyd in a jean jacket.
The best parts of Frozen Empire occur in a turn of the century prologue with frozen characters in a formal dining room. There’s also a fantastic pursuit following that scene showing all the cool tricks of the updated ECTO mobile as it races through the streets chasing after an eel like monster. During the sequence a drone trap launches off the roof of the hearse! That’s awesome. The last good scene occurs midway when one of the stone lions outside the NYC public library comes alive. Everything else in this sleepy picture is very bland, however.
The original, and even Ghostbusters II and the Paul Feig lady comedienne reinvention worked as comedies like the franchise became known for. I wasn’t crazy about those two sequels but at least the ghosts were the punchlines. Now the main ghost needs therapy and so does the lead character. It’s so dreary.
Where’s the funny? There is no longer a silliness or loony tune appeal to these monsters. As well, there are no more jokes to tell about The Big Apple. Don’t forget that Ghostbusters showed us that ghouls can pop out of drainpipes, drive cabs, gorge themselves on room service meals and hot dog stands and even cause the ghost hunters to wreck a posh banquet hall all in the service of the greater good. The well of laughs that stem from New York cannot be all dried up just yet. There are subways and buses to haunt. Broadway theatres. Cell phones. Parades. Ferrys. Morning News Shows.
I left Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire feeling morose and melancholy. When I got home, I knew for the first time that Zuul could never be living in my refrigerator and suddenly I was as sad as Melody and Phoebe. If this movie is depressing, then is it me or is it the Ghostbusters of today?
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 