{"id":4185,"date":"2025-02-25T15:00:35","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T22:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=4185"},"modified":"2025-01-09T21:13:48","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T04:13:48","slug":"movie-ghostbusters-frozen-empire-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/25\/movie-ghostbusters-frozen-empire-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: Ghostbusters &#8211; Frozen Empire (2024)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/thumb\/3\/31\/Ghostbusters_%282024%29_poster.jpg\/220px-Ghostbusters_%282024%29_poster.jpg\" alt=\"Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire\" width=\"220\" height=\"392\" \/>Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire<br \/><\/u><\/strong>Year: 2024<br \/>Rating: PG-13<br \/>Length: 115 minutes \/ 1.92 hours<\/p>\n<p>After the delightful reboot that was <a href=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2022\/07\/19\/movie-ghostbusters-afterlife-2021\/\"><em>Ghostbusters: Afterlife<\/em><\/a> (2021), I was excited to see that they would make a sequel with <em>Ghosbusters: Frozen Empire<\/em> (2024). Since <em>Afterlife<\/em> had taken the content more seriously than previous iterations of the franchise, I wanted to see if they&#8217;d continue that path in a meaningful way. Not that relying on comedy was a bad thing, but it felt like there was more to explore with these new characters. Unfortunately, there seemed to be a compromise of the old and the new in <em>Frozen Empire<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>80s nostalgia is huge in Hollywood right now, but I&#8217;d rather it stay as cameo appearances like in <em>Afterlife<\/em> than in bigger sub-plots like it was in this movie. There were almost too many character arcs in this film, most of which moved at a glacial pace for its almost 2-hour runtime. The ones that were interesting (and focused on the newer characters)\u2014like the ghost girlfriend\u2014weren&#8217;t ever tied into the major action, which itself felt like it took forever to get started. Leaning so heavily on the previous cast of the original movies felt like a crutch that shouldn&#8217;t have been used.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m all for franchises rebooting themselves with a new set of characters, but at least commit to it. This lukewarm coddling to older generations will never get new younger audiences engaged because they&#8217;ll see it for the cash grab that it is. Sure, visual effects have made movies like this look great. However, the heart of the movie is missing. That&#8217;s what I think <em>Jason Reitman<\/em> got right in Afterlife and was ultimately missing in this half-microwaved trip down memory lane.<\/p>\n<p>A reboot sequel that doesn&#8217;t know who it&#8217;s trying to appeal to, I give <em>Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire<\/em> 2.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/> 1\/2<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/bmw-the-critic\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"820\" height=\"312\" src=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/BMW-the-Critic-v3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4100\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/BMW-the-Critic-v3.png 820w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/BMW-the-Critic-v3-300x114.png 300w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/BMW-the-Critic-v3-768x292.png 768w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/BMW-the-Critic-v3-640x244.png 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ghostbusters: Frozen EmpireYear: 2024Rating: PG-13Length: 115 minutes \/ 1.92 hours After the delightful reboot that was Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), I was excited to see that they would make a sequel with Ghosbusters: Frozen Empire (2024). Since Afterlife had taken the content more seriously than previous iterations of the franchise, I wanted to see if they&#8217;d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,2],"tags":[3845,4029,1116,4028,4031,1067,13,1333,1217,4030,630,8,34],"class_list":["post-4185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2-5-stars","category-movie","tag-3845","tag-frozen-empire","tag-ghostbusters","tag-ghostbusters-frozen-empire","tag-ghosts","tag-lgbtq","tag-movie","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-original","tag-reboot","tag-review","tag-sequel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4185"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4194,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4185\/revisions\/4194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}