Better than Expected, though Still Leaves Something to be Desired

The power of a good, original idea is amazing. It's hard to believe a wacky, ghost catching film would be so popular back in 1984, that it would enamor audiences for decades. And not only are audiences still enamored with the original ideas, but they're willing to give chance after chance for new Hollywood shmucks to attempt to build on what was so special about the original in 1984, and unfortunately, not many of these modern tales get remotely close.

Hollywoods last two piles of steaming ectoplasm have been notoriously bad, and... well this one gets dangerously close to making that pile larger. It is very much a middle of the road movie, but I must say, that is something of a feat. I think also this is for various different reasons this time around, which is to say I think some corrections were made, others, not. To get an idea of where I stand on Afterlife, read my SIMKL review here.

To say that Frozen Empire has one issue would be a little too generous, but if I had to boil it down, subjectively, I'd say it lacks a clear focus. The writers are desperately trying to get me to care about the characters and their development over the course of the run time, except they're doing this with every character, and there are without exaggeration, 10 or so named characters that all get intertwined in this plot. In my opinion they're so desperate for my attention that this occupies a majority of the runtime. What I mean by this is, the namesake of the film, y'know, the frozen empire thing, happens and is resolved... in the last 20 minutes. Maybe I've just seen too many movies, but the stakes feel so low when I know the characters will resolve the thing in the next 30 minutes of the movie. Not a fan.

So who knows, maybe there is a good movie here but it certainly was not edited to be. I could go on and on about more things here and there with my little gripes, including the return of the ill-named Podcast, the showboating of our decrepit original Ghostbusters, the highly unusual teenage lesbian sub-plot, lifted (but not directly copied) plot ideas from the original, among other things. It's a mish mash of good and bad ideas, some work, some don't, and in the end I found myself thinking Frozen Empire was better than expected, so at least something was mixed right enough for that to occur, despite my criticisms.

So in the end I'm not sure If I'd recommend it or not because I myself am unsure if I really liked it or not. The way I've written it suggests I really do not, but I have to give it credit and say it was bearable. I wouldn't choose to watch it again, but a second watch wouldn't be completely insufferable. The only thing I can say for sure, is that it's certainly still not taking full advantage of what a really good, or even better than average Ghostbusters movie could be, and at least it's not (2016), or Afterlife.