McKenna Grace Archives

It’s time to review the new Ghostbusters movie. You may remember that I gave Ghostbusters: Afterlife a positive review, though I noted a number of negatives. My hope was the sequel would learn from the good and bad of Afterlife and truly move the franchise forward. Moving the action back to New York (And the famous firehouse) was certainly a positive. The remaining original Ghostbusters were set to return once more, this time not just turning up for the finale. It all sounded good and the trailer was solid. But would it really be up to scratch?

The Ghostbusters Come Home.

Gil Kenan takes the directors chair for this one. The script is by him and the director of the previous movie Jason Reitman. It’s unknown how much involvement Jason had on this one. It’s worth noting that his father and original Ghostbusters director Ivan passed away in 2022 so was notably uninvolved. Returning from the original two movies are Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts and William Atherton. Afterlife’s Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Celeste O’Connor and Logan Kim joins them. The already bulky cast adds in Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt, James Acaster and Emily Alyn Lind.

The story picks up in New York where the Spengler family have taken over the firehouse and the day to day business of busting ghost. After causing citywide destruction the mayor of the town (Walter Peck from the first two films) decrees that Phoebe as a 15 year old should not be working as a Ghostbuster. Annoyed by this she heads to central park to sulk and play chess but ends up befriending a ghost called Melody (Lind). Meanwhile Nadeem Razmaadi (Nanjiani) attempts to sell off his grandmothers collection of oddities to Ray Stantz (Ackroyd) who finds particular interest on one unique item inscribed with ancient glyph. It turns out this item contains an ancient evil spirit that if released could threaten the world. Naturally, it does get released and it is down to the Ghostbusters and Razmaadi to fix things.

Busting Makes Me Feel Bored.

Frozen Empire is not a terrible film or even the worst Ghostbusters film. It is however very average and ultimately a disappointment. The unfortunate thing is almost every problem could have been predicted going in, leaving little excuse for it. One thing I didn’t predict was that the film would be boring! Sadly for most of it, that was exactly what it was. Most of the fun stuff is literally in the trailer. Frozen Empire, much like Afterlife is a bit too long. Both movies were only about 15-20 minutes longer than the original, but with a lot less going on you really notice the run time. The movie especially drags through the first two acts where after the ghost chase scene from the trailer, very little actually happens.

It’s not just the pacing that is the issue, but also the focus on Phoebe (Grace). This worked in the previous film somewhat, with that story being largely constructed around her relationship with the ghost of Egon Spengler. But the problem is she just isn’t that interesting. There is a reason Egon wasn’t the main character in the original movies. Egon was at least funny though (Harold Ramis was a very funny man and co-writer of the original). Pheobe is no Egon and really doesn’t work as the franchise lead. It doesn’t help that once again they’ve focused her arc on her relationship with a ghost (This time stealing ideas from “Casper The Friendly Ghost”). It’s also notable that strapping a nuclear accelerator to a 15 year old girl and expecting her to fight ghosts regularly does raise a number of questions. The movie examines these, but not terribly well.

Ghost To Buster Ratio.

The remaining original Ghostbusters do get more to do than in the previous film (Where they literally just showed up for the ending) and this was very welcome. Even Venkman gets a scene before the ending. The roles aren’t large, but didn’t need to be. The big problem though is between that and the focus on Phoebe the other characters get almost no time or character development. When I reviewed Afterlife I said that Trevor (Wolfhard) was largely wasted and needed to get actual character development in any sequel. Well, he has even less of a role in this. This is true of all the other characters introduced in Afterlife, none more so than Lucky (O’Connor) and Podcast (Kim) who feel like they have been grandfathered in and do almost nothing. On top of this there are several new characters thrown in the mix too.

But it’s not just the screen time and character development. Many of these characters are just badly written. None of Afterlife characters display the charm they had in the previous film and many of them are just plain stupid now. Speaking of stupid, this is a movie where the problems that must be solved are entirely created by the good guys in the first place. That is almost always a bad idea, but the fact is had the Ghostbusters not returned to New York, none of the events of the film would have happened. This has the embarrassing side effect of meaning that Walter Peck (Now Mayor of New York for some reason) is actually 100% correct this time around. It could be argued Peck is the good guy and the Ghostbusters are actually now the villains!

Nostalgia Bait.

In Ghostbusters Afterlife I praised how they used the references to the original movie. While re-using Gozer seemed a little lazy, all the nostalgia was directly a part of the plot. They didn’t just drop things in for “‘Member Berries” (Thank you South Park for that term) and they didn’t stop things every few minutes to drop an Easter Egg like they did in the 2016 movie. Sadly though Frozen Empire is back to dropping references in just for the sake of it. They don’t waste too much time with it, but I’m not a fan of that kind of fan service. But it’s not just references to the original, they also brought back the mini-marshmallow men from Afterlife. To be fair, the kids in the cinema will love that but they didn’t add much for me.

The villain of the story is pure CGI and largely forgettable. He ties into the new character of Nadeem Razmaadi (played by Kumail Nanjiani), who is the “Firemaster”. This is a rather obvious reference to Rick Moarranis’ Louis Tully character in the original that was the “Keymaster”. Nanjani is no Moarranis and Razmaadi is no Tully. Ultimately it is an annoying character that adds to the movies character bloat. The big showdown is between the one villain and ELEVEN good guys. They are assisted by not one but two ghosts. To be fair, one of those ghosts is sort of unintentionally helping, with the returning favourite provides the most predictable moment in the entire movie. For reference Afterlife’s showdown was 7 people and one ghost on the heroes side and the original was just the four Ghostbusters. Afterlife managed to give each character a little moment in that finale, not so here.

Conclusion

Ultimately this was a disappointment. Not terrible and certainly better than the 2016 movie but it was boring, cluttered and not nearly as a funny as it should have been. This was a step back from Afterlife and many of my concerns I had with that movie as far as the future direction went seem justified. At this point I’m not sure they can fix it with movies. What they do have though is something that could work as a TV series, where they can actually flesh out these characters and introduce new ones without feeling cluttered. It’s worth noting I suggested the same thing after the previous movie. Sadly, this is a 5.5/10. Just short of a recommendation. I will say though, the children in the cinema seemed to be enjoying it. This may be a kids franchise now.

Tonight I finally got to see the long anticipated “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” (2021). This is the official Ghostbusters 3, perhaps far too late to be a legitimate sequel, so instead it’s effectively a torch passing which is what they should have done last time out when they made that ill advised remake. Unfortunately a lot of critics that supported that movie have been extra salty about this new one, while the average movie goer probably just remember the last movie was terrible and as such are likely cautious about going to see this. My theatre was not even half full for the 8pm showing on it’s opening Thursday. But I’m not here to talk box office, I’m here to talk quality so lets dig in!

In with the New.

So the first thing to note here is there are basically four new Ghostbusters to presumably be the long term replacements for the original. It’s pretty clear that unlike the 2016 movie that basically just gender swapped the original team of four guys they set up to be as diverse as possible here. The team has two boys and two girls and includes one Black and one Asian character. Unfortunately those two seem to be modern Hollywood stereotypes because they are painfully similar to Michelle and Ned from the MCU Spider-Man films. They are more endearing than those characters at least and “Podcast”, the Asian boy is actually one of the highlights of the film.

Mckenna Grace and Finn Wolfhard play Egon Spenglers grandkids, Phoebe and Trevor and Pheobe is basically the movies protagonist. She is a young female Egon, but they tried to give her a bit of uniqueness by having her make really bad jokes, which does mostly work. McKenna is actually brilliant here but I think the film spends a bit too much time focused on her because the truth is Egon is not the Ghostbuster you want as your lead, but perhaps more importantly it leaves Trevor feeling undeveloped and as a knock on effect from that his love interest “Lucky” (Celeste O’Connor), gets the short straw on screen time and development, which is ironic consider she is basically the Black Ghostbuster.

Out with the Old.

The movie feels a lot smaller scale than the original Ghostbusters or even it’s sequel, but while this change in tone does make the movie feel more like a reboot than a sequel it does work for the movie itself. This is ultimately a more emotional movie and isn’t really about the ghost story but about the characters and the legacy of the original. As such the plot is very thin on the ground and basically “Gozer came back somehow”, the movie also feels a bit too long if you watch it right after the original movies (as I did) and slows down a lot in the middle. The first very long act of the movie basically involves the kids discovering their grandfathers legacy. The second act is basically where the plot resides along with a bit of ghost action. There’s a completely pointless appearance by Ivo Shandor (architect of the building from the first film), which I would say was a spoiler except he does literally nothing. This leads us to our big finale and this is where the movie finally reaches it’s potential.

I don’t want to drop too much about the final act and just how the original team become involved but suffice to say I found the ending very satisfactory and emotional. The original team are respected and every character basically gets their moment. My only real criticism is this act is by far the shortest, but what it lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality.

A love letter to the original.

There are many call backs to the original movie, but unlike when these appeared in the 2016 disaster, this time around they fit smoothly into the story, don’t mess with the pacing and each one landed well with me and everyone else in the theatre. When the original crew appear they are all respected and despite their short time on the screen every one of them gets some character development and at least a good line or reference. It is safe to say what their appearances lack in quantity they make up for in quality. They also get to be the focus of the mid/post credits scenes that you really have to stay for. It’s worth noting that Ernie Hudson has somehow managed to avoid aging. The guy almost looks like he did in Ghostbusters 2. Speaking of the original sequel, it’s interesting to note that the movie makes no references (that I noticed) to that movie specifically, which is a shame but I guess it’s understandable given a lot of people seem to dislike that movie.

The biggest surprise of the movie is just how much character development Egon gets, despite both the actor and the character being dead. This really is his story and the movie is focused on his legacy both from his life’s work and his family. It is ultimately a very moving tribute to a well loved character and I wouldn’t be surprised if a few tears are shed by the end. Ultimately this movie while not the near perfection of the original, achieved everything the 2016 movie failed at. It is a very respectful and entertaining return for the franchise.

Tag: McKenna Grace

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)