«Ghostbusters Sequel» - Movie Review by Kinoafisha
The franchise is haunted by ghosts of the past.
The heroes from the previous installment race through New York in the iconic Ecto car, trying to aim their proton gun at a huge dragon ghost. School teacher played by Paul Rudd is behind the wheel, doing his best to establish himself as a father figure to two teenagers in the back seat. In this classic action scene, there's a sense of family forming before our eyes, there's dynamism. And that's the best you'll see in the movie.
From the creaky house in the field, the main characters moved to the big city. The franchise returns to its roots, or rather, to the skyscrapers that were famous for dozens of ghosts waiting to be captured in a special trap. The Spengler family settles in the iconic firehouse and acquires personal assistants, perfecting ghost storage facilities. Hunters don't suffer from a lack of work, but the forces of evil are not idle — and a new villain is ready to unleash an icy apocalypse.
Besides encountering absolute evil, there is a lot going on in the film. Phoebe starts communicating with a ghost, quarrels with her newly acquired stepfather, her older brother eats chips with ectoplasm, an ancient artifact controls ghosts, actors from the original movies drop Easter eggs, marshmallow creatures cosplay minions, and fire mages appear (no, this isn't another adaptation of "Avatar: The Last Airbender"). "Frozen Empire" truly terrifies with its abundance of plot lines and characters. It touches on the intriguing theme of the fate of ghosts imprisoned in hunters' storage, raises questions about the possibility of good communication with the spirit world, but abandons these bright ideas halfway. The writers prefer tons of fan service. Not only does the old guard of hunters appear on screen, but also many other characters from the original parts. Remembering their existence, or rather, even recognizing them after 40 years since the premiere of the first movie, is possible, but only if you rewatch the old movies and view current photos of the actors just before meeting the newcomers.
The creators desperately try not only to include as many actors from the past as possible but also to recreate the most famous scenes. This damages the understanding of the project's target audience: the update of the story was created to attract new fans, but peers of the main characters are unlikely to feel nostalgia for the 80s movies, which take up a lion's share of the screen time. This also hinders the development of young characters. Phoebe, the driving force of the new installments, carries both romantic drama and family drama, but the writers script them so roughly that they crack under the weight of the rest of the cacophonous events.
Character designs and special effects look cheap for a modern blockbuster with such a large cast. The humor in the movie can only elicit a couple of approving chuckles, which doesn't quite fit with the genre of "Hunters," which primarily was a comedy. Adding a couple of sharp jokes and removing the excess fan service with secondary characters, "Frozen Empire" could have turned into a family movie in the spirit of "Night at the Museum." In reality, however, the novelty falls short even of the level of fantasy movies of the 2000s. Some franchises are indeed better off staying frozen in ice than trying to break free from it.
