acid reflects

Warning: the latest from the ghost patrol may cause short term brain freeze from too much exposition. The effect is temporary. The main villain, Garraka, looks gnarly cool though. Fans will enjoy the nostalgia trip.

Spoilers be here, too, so skitattle if you wish.

The Spenglers Callie (Carrie Coon), Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) plus their ex-teacher-now-Callie’s-BF Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd) have transferred to New York, ghostbusting for the big city. Why, it is unclear. Their action opening scene together shows an atypical family dynamic, but they get the job done, despite the mayor’s frustrations.

Nadeem (Kumail Nanjiani) sells an unusual relic to Ray Stantz (Dan Akroyd) unaware of the evil it contained. That evil is unleashed after Phoebe meets Melody (Emily Alyn Lind), the ghost of a young woman who perished in a fire.

The new Ghostbusters reteam with the old but refurbished Ghostbusters (Akroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts) plus Afterlife holdovers Lucky (Celeste O’Connor) and Podcast (Logan Kim.) The latest cast addition is the group’s resident geek, Lars (played by James Acaster) who runs the Ghostbuster’s newest containment and research facility across town (but still in New York.)

Was that a long intro to the cast? You bet. The film gets busy doing just that. AND THEN it goes to the plot about some ancient general who vowed freezing the world to death after getting betrayed by his king. Why freezing, I dunno, maybe that was his villainpower.

TLDR: Family wins. New York (by that, it means the WHOLE WORLD) is saved.

Grace carries her scenes, er, with grace, as the emotional center of the story that circles around her being the odd member of the group despite being the brains and spirit of the current Spenglers. Akroyd and Kim are also my comedic favorites, since Afterlife (Akroyd since the original.)

Strange that a fairly acknowledged duo of filmmakers (writers-directors Gil Kenan, Jason Reitman) could come up with something generic. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire redoubts itself on the 2021 franchise reboot Afterlife by again bingeing nostalgic the original cast, then creating this new, young atom of Busters, and rehashing the end of the world scenario of the 1984 story (which Afterlife also did.) Plus the endless replay of the original theme song.

Strange that the film brands the new team as a Spengler fam – would that mean in the future spawns of this storyline, no one will take Grooberson as a surname should Callie and Gary tie the knot? Callie did call herself Spengler. Does the empire in Frozen Empire mean Empire State, or the fictional ancient empire that Garraka came from? How did Garraka know what Phoebe will do? Minor quips.

It’s not a particularly bad film – the creatures look awesome for Halloween, and I don’t mind the really scary scenes (the original had sexual undertones, stop thinking this is child’s play.) But for all its production worth, in this REAL day and age of “the world just might ACTUALLY end tomorrow in another pandemic or nuclear war,” shouldn’t Hollywood at the very least not waste time and money on something we as an audience already have wasted time and money on? Oh, wait, they did try that in Ghostbusters 2016.

This kind of cold actually bothered me. Let it go, Hollywood, maybe?

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire opens today April 10 in cinemas, from Columbia Pictures Philippines.

Images courtesy of Columbia Pictures.