The first Cinema Saturday post of the month was Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
So let's bookend the month of March with it's sequel, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire begins with a prologue set in July 1904 where New York City Fire Department firefighters are summoned to a private men's club where they find a room full of people frozen to death. A strange chant is coming from a phonograph and the only survivor is a woman in a suit of armor clutching a bronze orb and clearly traumatized by what she has seen.
Present Day: Callie Spengler, her boyfriend Gary Grooberson, and her children Trevor and Phoebe have taken up residence in the New York firehouse and also taken up the Ghostbusters business once more.
After a dangerous chase through the streets to catch the Hell's Kitchen Sewer Dragon, the Spenglers run up against New York Mayer Walter Peck, the same guy who as an EPA official tried to shoot down the Ghostbusters in the first movie in 1984.
To appease Peck, Callie suspends 15-year-old Phoebe from the field until she is a legal adult.
Left out of Ghostbuster missions in the field, Phoebe meets and befriends a ghost named Melody, who died in a fire with her own family when she was 16-year-old and is not able to rest in peace.
The Spenglers (and Gary) are not the only ones to have escaped from Oklahoma:
- Lucky who is working for original Ghostbuster Winston Zeddemore in his high tech paranormal research lab.
- Podcast who is working for original Ghostbuster Ray Stantz in his curio shop of wonders weird and strange.
It's at Ray's shop that Nadeem Razmaadi (Kumail Nanjiani) arrives to sell Ray an weird ass orb that used to belong to his grandmother. Yep, it's the orb from the prologue and Ray realizes the orb's paranormal energy readings are way off the chart.
The orb is a prison for a malevolent god known as Garraka with powers to freeze bodies and souls and the entire world.
It is vitally important Garraka does not get out of that orb.
Spoiler: Garraka gets out of that orb.
Now as you can no doubt determine, there is a lot going in this movie, perhaps too much going on.
In addition to the strained family dynamic of Phoebe, Trevor, mom Callie and step... boyfriend? Gary, (plus somehow all the way from Oklahoma, we also get Lucky & Podcast), we've got to bring in the original surviving Ghostbusters Ray, Winston & Peter plus even Janine (Annie Potts) gets to suit up to bust ghosts.
(Mee Maw from Young Sheldon is a Ghostbuster! Hell yeah!)
Then we've got new characters Winston's paranormal science dude Lars Pinfeld (James Acaster) and weird librarian Hubert Wartzk (the always reliably on point Patton Oswalt).
Plus Nadeem and ghost Melody.
And back from the first movie is Walter Peck (the returning William Atherton) who is now the Mayor and still does not like Ghostbusters.
It is quite frankly a lot and there's a lot of moving about to make sure everyone gets their moment to shine which has a way of slowing down the pace of the movie.
The final showdown with Garraka is a big 21st century CGI driven spectacle.
There was some complaints from critics that Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is not funny.
OK, the original Ghostbusters was conceived as a comedy but I do not think the franchise is forced to stay a comedy, that it can branch out to be more of adventure driven or dramatic but retaining some comedic elements.
There are laughs to be found in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire but I think there is nothing wrong with the franchise looking beyond it's comedy roots.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is not as good as it could've been but it's not as bad as that 43% score on Rotten Tomatoes would have you believe.
While critics may have been less than kind, audiences seemed to like it just fine.
- Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.
- Moviegoers polled by PostTrak gave it an 80% overall positive score.
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