Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

From the last few weeks, I've seen a lot of stellar movies combined with some real fun movies that had very little substance to them. It's a good month for it to be honest, with very few bad movies being released. However, this movie? It struggles to be gripping as a movie nor compelling as a comedy. Instead, it chooses to recreate the mistakes of its predecessors and instead repeat tired cliches and middling jokes instead of build characters around their humor. Let's get into Ghostbusters 4 (yes, this is only the 4th one.)

PLOT: Convoluted.

Despite having a plot basically filled out for itself with the main villain, it takes nearly an hour and a half to get to the "Frozen Empire". The movie barely spends any time on it. I was expecting halfway through for the Frozen Empire to begin then time-jump ahead to show how bad it's gotten. But, cue my surprise when we instead spend an hour and a half building up other much more boring characters and not focusing on the story at all. What's even worse is how bizarrely complicated it is. Focusing on ancient Ghostbusters, fire benders, and a god who's trying to freeze everyone to death. Worst of all, that god is using another ghost to do their work for them, but that god is very clearly capable of manipulating things around them to get it to happen. What could be a very fun movie about New York freezing over is instead an hour and a half of setup for a boring as hell villain.

CHARACTERS: Good oldies but bad newbies.

All the characters who were introduced here suck. That's just simple as can be. They mostly aren't funny, rarely get to do anything, or just are there to pad the cast. The only interesting one is the ghost girl played by Emily Alyn Lind. She actually gets a good amount of character building and I thought she was going to be a love interest for McKenna Grace's character (which would've been sweet, so little gay representation in this series already) but they do nothing with that, but that's more than I can say for her brother. Finn Wolfhard is useless in this plot and is there to give comedy relief and reactions. He's funny, but nowhere near utilized enough. That being said, the returning adults are all fantastic. Paul Rudd steals any scene he's in, Carrie Coon is phenomenal with this struggle between parenting and being in a relationship, and the classics are all here! Akyroyd is cooky and a bit odd, but that's perfect for older Ray. Hudson is a scene stealer as well with his delivery and looks remarkable for being the oldest Ghostbuster (80 this year!) Bill Murray is actually funny here and gets the best lines for the most part. Seeing Annie Potts in costume is very cool, although I would've liked to actually see Sigourney Weaver in costume after last movie. Either way, prior actors are good, new ones are not for the most part.

SHOTS: Blockbuster-y for better or worse.

Films like this need to be shot with care or risk just looking over-produced and fake. While this film has a unique return to the more classic puppets and effects, it does end up looking fake with certain elements like the villain, some of the ghosts, and a bit of the large-scale fight scenes. It's a shame when it rarely does because the practical Slimer is well-done and most of the film looks great. But, when the CGI takes over, it looks rough. But, that being said, it looked good. Rarely did the film feel fake and it always had great lighting that helped hiding rougher parts of the CGI. Findinng out the villain was mostly practical is surprising, but the fake CGI elements definitely distract at times.

SOUND: Spooky and a bit dark!

The soundtrack always felt a little dark and spooky, playing into the mystical element. It's fitting and rarely ever distracts from the story. Overall, sound design and soundtrack are very well-done and fit the movie. If it were a better movie, I'd say it was a phenomenal soundtrack, but I rarely remembered any tracks from it.

WRITING: Rough beyond rough.

This is where the film falters. Poor writing kills this film quickly before it can even commence further. The characters aren't well-written and rarely are included in the plot when needed. The villain has a convoluted story and it just feels strange that all these elements are included in a Ghostbusters movie. While certainly ghosts and demons are all part of this world, having literal fire benders in this world is a stretch. Additionally, the demon's power set makes it seem like they don't really need anyone to handle freeing them. Most baffling, a ghost that can possess objects is seen in this film. Ghosts have possessed people before, why not have a ghost possess someone and free them? Maybe I'm overthinking it, but this movie just felt way too complicated for Ghostbusters. Lastly, the pacing issues made this movie beyond unbearable. I was sitting there halfway wondering when this movie was just gonna get to the end. It was so slow and hard to watch.

VERDICT: A painful slog slowed by bad pacing with chunks of good acting and fun comedy.

While I am certainly harsh, this movie does have good elements that prevent it from being unrecommedable. The original actors all get a ton to do, the actors from Afterlife try their best with the material given, and the physical comedy is often very good. However, on top of a slogfest plot, this story is way too complicated to be given the name "Ghostbusters". Yeah, Zuul was complex, but it was also the only thing built up the whole time. This movie builds up a ghost-fighting business and has the family getting kicked out of their building as separate story lines. It complicates the story to an unnecessary degree and makes it very hard to know where people are at in the finale. If you want Ghostbusters, it's fine enough, but if you want a funny comedy, look elsewhere.

SCORE: 4/10