Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024) ✦ Full-Length Watchalong Reaction
Added 2024-10-26 16:17:15 +0000 UTCAnd we have reached the end! (For now.) I'm looking forward to your thoughts on this as well as your final ranking of all 5 movies! [Direct link here.]
Cheers,
✦ KL
Comments
...okay, well that was really cool—the experience, I mean—not necessarily the film. I doubt there will be many movies that I watch along without having seen them, beforehand. But this one fell into that rare space whereby I have been interested in seeing it, but not compelled to do anything about actually seeing it.—back in the old days, one would call this a "I'll wait till it's on cable" type flick. But when I saw you'd reacted to it, it gave me the impetus to sit down and watch it. And Watching along with you was perfect. As for the film, I pretty much felt the same as you. It wasn't bad. It wasn't great. And you are entirely correct about there being too many new characters introduced. I mean, if you must insist on having the original Ghostbusters and the new ones in the same movie—that's already too many—then don't add more! I was really pleased to see James Acaster turn up, until I realized he really didn't belong in this film—completely miscast. He's such an hilarious standup, and I kept waiting for him to say or do something funny to justify his presence... he did neither. The original is effortlessly funny and naturalistic. The "funny" bits in this one seem forced and contrived. In fact, I think that is part of the magic of the original film, everything in it is more natural—even down to the lighting, sound, and film stock. It has this grainy, gritty, and improvised (one take improvised) feel to it that makes the absurdity of the characters, and the situation they are in, richer, deeper, and more real... and, thus, funnier—"I looked at the trap, Ray" is funny, in part, because of the whole mise-en-scène, which is the background that highlights the relatability of the character and his statement. Without meaning to get too pretentious, it's a character study of funny (realistically funny) characters dealing with the absurd (though aesthetically realistic) situation they find themselves in. And I do like Paul Rudd—ever since Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers—but, he does have a tendency to "act-improvise" funny, rather than actually improvising funny.* These new films are entertaining—I was entertained—, but somewhat flat and uninspiring. *I do really like Paul Rudd, so don't judge me :)
Sam
2024-10-30 18:33:09 +0000 UTCMan, it really does suck that the one person Phoebe felt comfortable with and felt like she could talk to and could have even come to love was a ghost. Hey at least she found what to look for in a companion!
Nathan Jasper, the Artist Formerly Known as Primary
2024-10-30 00:01:24 +0000 UTCOkay, this is the first film I am going to watch along without having seen it before... I'll let you know how it pans out... to be continued...
Sam
2024-10-29 17:09:45 +0000 UTCThis my 1 st watch of this and it was a good enough time. I liked the involvement of the OG cast and score, I’m a sucker for that stuff. I like Kumail Nanjiani a lot so he made me laugh. Also the return of the villainous Walter Peck from the EPA was good. I do wish McKenna, Finn and Logan got more to do cuz I really enjoyed them in Afterlife.
RichieRich
2024-10-29 07:53:32 +0000 UTCThis was fun! My rankings are a little bit different than yours. I'd go with the original "Ghostbusters," followed by "Afterlife," then this, then "Ghostbusters 2" and then the 2016 remake. While I think "Ghostbusters 2" is a better comedy than this, I wasn't a huge fan of the second movie's slime plot or the villain. This movie had a more interesting plotline to me. I'm not mad about the little Stay Puft creatures either. I enjoy watching them mutilate themselves and each other. I'm not sure what that says about me, but it's probably not good. I'm glad to have now watched all of the Ghostbusters movies. And I look forward to whatever reactions are coming up!
BubblyRainbows
2024-10-27 13:25:35 +0000 UTCI found this film to be a nice fun addition to the franchise. Definitely, for me, not as enjoyable as Afterlife. I'd rank them thus Ghostbusters Afterlife Ghostbusters ✌🏼 Frozen Empire Still not far enough. I tried too hard to be funny. But not as hard as they tried. We both failed. 🤣
Daryl
2024-10-26 23:19:17 +0000 UTCOh, yes I'm aware they were. My comment about them being Ghostbusters was def a joke. Sorry it didn't come across that way. Yes, I saw that review but obvs didn't read it. I will now!
kaiielle
2024-10-26 18:51:20 +0000 UTCThe guys in the 1904 prologue are just regular firemen, from back when the firehouse was being used as a firehouse. The film Rudd finds, Cannibal Girls, is actually Ivan Reitman's sophomore feature film. It's actually one of the franchise's go-to in-jokes. There is a theater marquee in Ghostbusters II that has the title on it (which would've been even more of an in-joke before they cut Cannibal Girls star Eugene Levy out of the movie, in which he had a supporting role as Louis' cousin Sherman Tully), and then they do that same thing in Afterlife, when they pass a movie theater. When I saw this movie, I made the joke that the Ghostbusters franchise presents an alternate universe where things are very similar to the way they are in our universe, except Cannibal Girls was a major cultural phenomenon. I rank this second out of all the Ghostbusters movies because, as mentioned in my review of Afterlife, my biggest problem with the series is that it is sometimes stuck in the past. A second movie that shamelessly steals the plot beats from the first so the characters can be underdogs, a reboot that is literally a remake (even if it changes quite a bit) and therefore tells the going into business story again, and a third movie that turns into a sloppy and more direct remake of the original in the last 40 minutes? Give me something new. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is far from perfect (like Afterlife, I just plain don't find it nearly as funny as I would like it to be), but it gives me almost wall-to-wall new ideas. Being friends with a ghost, the ghost extraction machine, the Firemaster stuff. I was kind of flabbergasted when this movie got savaged by critics for supposedly having too many winks and callbacks when I feel like they actually toned down the direct references by about 50% compared to the 2016 movie and Afterlife. That said, while this is a little long, there are definitely several small changes and adjustments I'd make to help patch up the numerous plot holes and loose threads throughout the film. I wrote them up in my last Letterboxd review of the movie, which you can find here: https://boxd.it/7ox50N
Tyler Foster
2024-10-26 18:49:21 +0000 UTC
