Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

In a world where studio executives seem to think that every goddamn film needs to be built into a franchise, audiences have had to endure some truly terrible sequels and prequels. We’ve seen this with tv shows, newer films but more recently popular movies from the 80s. Yes we are here complaining about Ghostbusters. Or rather the newest Ghostbusters movie. Now that is one film that should have been left as a one and done. Even with the original cast the first prequel was terrible. Then we had that placating gender bent version which did nothing but piss me off. And now we have yet another sequel, and I am pretty sure I’m missing one that was made in between those last two. Ghostbusters Frozen Empire was disappointing, unnecessary and an entire waste of time.

So just because you cast Paul Rudd in something doesn’t mean it's good…though with his track record I understand why you would think that. I feel like he used to be so much more versatile as an actor. But since Marvel he has really gone downhill skill wise.

Also just because you are using the original cast doesn’t give sequels any merit. This film felt like it was trying to capture the winning formula with members of the original cast but it really is a swing and a miss. Because they are in the movie but the story clearly centers on this next generation. But this really isn’t a legacy story. Just show your kids the original movie yall.

I suppose making some of the young characters children was an attempt to bring in a younger generation. But here’s the deal, I saw the original film when I was maybe 10? And I had no problem connecting with it. So I am not sure why studio executives seem to think that teenagers and children are incapable of connecting with characters older than them. Just give us good movies. Pandering doesn’t make good movies.

They also tried to add like this deep family story about Paul Rudd learning how to be a stepdad. And it really just detracted from the Ghostbusting. The tone was really inconsistent. The original film was goofy, it was a little bit campy and that's what made it so charming. But this movie was trying to take itself so seriously and that's what killed it. I could perhaps look past the obvious money grabbiness of the existence of this film but I really couldn’t handle the wild and random tone shifts.

Also a whole storyline with one of the main characters befriending a ghost? It's super weird. It's a completely separate tonal shift from the goofy tone the movie should have and the super serious blending families tone. I also just don’t understand what the purpose of that was. Why are we sympathizing with ghosts? Sure not all of them are bad but the movie is called Ghostbusters, let’s please try and stay on topic and not ruin the legacy of a perfectly good film.

The existence of this film makes this year feel so long. I feel like I’ve been seeing trailers and advertising for it since last year and that’s just ridiculous. As predicted it was a waste of time. If we wanted to watch Ghostbusters, we would just do that. Choosing to (try and) profit off an insanely popular IP is annoying at best and disrespectful at worst. The tone shifts in this movie did nothing but demonstrate that studio executives have no idea why the original film was popular. It gets nothing more than a 4/10 and only because it included the original cast.