Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Review - Ghostbusters 3 In 2024, For Better Or Worse

There are two things that are simultaneously true about Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. First: It tells a new and original Ghostbusters story, in the vein of the original two, that functions like a true Ghostbusters 3, unlike 2021's Ghostbusters: Afterlife. That's a good thing, in a vacuum. But the second thing is a big caveat: The Ghostbusters formula has been used by so many blockbusters in the past couple decades that Frozen Empire just cannot make a real impression.

In other words, we've got a legitimate new Ghostbusters movie on our hands, but what the franchise actually needs is to reinvent itself. Not the way Afterlife did it, by doing an '80s-style kid adventure, but by actually finding a new direction. Instead, we've got essentially a Ghostbusters-themed Marvel movie that's got several movies' worth of plot and only occasionally made me laugh. Bummer.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire opens with the Spengler family (Carrie Coon, Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard) and Gary (Paul Rudd) acting as full-fledged Ghostbusters, in uniform, in the Ecto-1, chasing an ethereal sewer dragon through the streets of New York City. They catch the dragon, cause some not-insignificant collateral damage, and the mayor (the EPA guy from the original movie, Walter Peck, for some reason) decides to try to shut them down and condemn the old fire station over it. Yes, the Spenglers and Gary live in the old Ghostbusters firehouse now, just because.