Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Reviews Call the Sequel Fun, but Flawed

Freeze! The first reactions have finally arrived after Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire held its premiere Thursday night in New York City, where the film takes place 40 years after the classic 1984 comedy. The sequel to 2021's Ghostbusters: Afterlife — which reunites original stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and Annie Potts alongside next-gen Ghostbusters Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Mckenna Grace, and Finn Wolfhard — sees an ancient evil cast a death chill upon New York, bringing together Ghostbusters new and old to save the world from a second Ice Age.

So, did Frozen Empire receive a chilly reception or a warm welcome from critics? Based on the early social media reactions and reviews, it sounds like those who were among the first to see the film ain't afraid to call Ghostbusters 4 a fun, if flawed, successor to the nostalgic and sentimental Afterlife.

"Between the veteran Ghostbusters actors, the returning Afterlife squad, and the new additions, it's an accomplishment in itself that they all seem to gel so well onscreen, with scenes of banter between the cast being the distinction that elevates Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire above other franchise installments," writes Kofi Outlaw in a review for ComicBook. "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire may be the first Ghostbusters film of the new era to inspire the hope – even the excitement – that this franchise, with these characters, can still run for at least another installment (or two), and will probably only continue to improve with each one."

See more excerpts from reviews around the Internet:

Variety: "You might say that Frozen Empire has to work even harder to invent a reason for itself to exist. Yet it's a livelier movie than Afterlife. It was directed by Gil Kenan, the co-writer of Afterlife (he and [Jason] Reitman share screenplay credit this time as well), and Kenan keeps the wide-eyed hollow scavenger hunt of a plot moving, whether he's bringing one of those stone lions in front of the New York Public Library to aggressive life or coaxing an irresistibly avid performance out of Patton Oswalt as a library scholar who actually makes the Orb sound worth all the excitement." 

The Hollywood Reporter: "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire tries hard, very hard, to satisfy the series' fans with plenty of nostalgic throwbacks and mainly succeeds. It's not nearly as good as the classic 1984 original, but then again, neither was 1989's Ghostbusters II, and that one was directed by Ivan Reitman and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, all of whom were responsible for the original. So the fact that this installment manages to be as much fun as it is represents a minor triumph."

USA Today: "Although Frozen Empire improves upon the previous film and there's plenty to dig especially for young fans, it falls short of the 1984 classic's high bar. (To be fair, none of the Ghostbusters outings since have come close.) So, bustin' doesn't feel as good as it once did but we're getting there."

Chicago Sun Times: "I haven't always loved the theatrical-release follow-ups to the original, but I'm pleased to report that Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire carries the same endearingly goofy, science-nerd spirit of the first film and delivers a delightful balance of slimy ghost stuff, sharp one-liners, terrific VFX and a steady stream of callbacks to various characters, human and otherwise, from the 1984 movie. Director Gil Kenan (who co-wrote the screenplay with Jason Reitman) is clearly a devoted fan of the entire franchise, and while Frozen Empire sometimes overdoes it with the 21st-century green-screen stuff, and there are a few lags in the action around the midway point, this is a big and boisterous and just plain fun amusement park ride of a movie." 

IndieWire: "Despite being crammed with characters — the final big battle includes no less than eleven good guys, Kenan can barely keep them all in frame, let alone fighting back — and packed with subplots, little of Frozen Empire makes a lick of sense. The bigger questions it routinely approaches, from the mechanics of the evil ancient entity at its heart to how we might deal ghosts who seem like they want to be our friend, are never answered. If you're enjoying a moment or a beat or a storyline or even a character, they will soon be ripped away in order to service yet another subplot ... This franchise might not be entirely dead just yet, but its latest resurrection doesn't make nearly enough good arguments to keep pumping life into it."

Empire: "Ghostbusters isn't in the afterlife just yet, but it might be in purgatory. Has there ever been a franchise with as much of an identity crisis? We've had 1984's comedy-horror and its follow-up; years later a zany gender-flipping reboot that had its charms but floundered; and then, pretending that one never happened, came 2021's Afterlife, a surprisingly moving sequel to the originals that introduced a likeable new breed of 'busters. Now, Frozen Empire throws everything against the wall to see if any of the slime sticks. Bits of it do; much of it just gloops off. There are some entertaining ghouls, but the real fear this time seems to be off screen. Trying to play it safe, buckling under the weight of its own heritage, Ghostbusters itself is running scared."

RogerEbert.com: "Like Slimer shoving snacks in his ravenous maw, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire tries to cram way too many characters, storylines and iconic images into its two-hour runtime. Director Gil Kenan's film does a vaguely better job of balancing the old and the new than its predecessor, Ghostbusters: Afterlife. It finesses the fan service in a way that the 2021 reboot/legacyquel/whatever you want to call it did not, offering familiar images and bits of dialogue in breezier fashion while also moving these characters, and this story, in a slightly different direction."

The Independent: "Frozen Empire is a notable improvement on Afterlife – funny, silly, and a little scary, with its pockets full of hand-built doodahs and the occasional excursion into the realm of pseudo-mythology and parapsychology. You know, like the original Ghostbusters. At some point in the process, director Gil Kenan and co-writer Jason Reitman (son of the late Ivan Reitman, who directed the original), seem to have remembered that Ghostbusters was Dan Aykroyd's baby, born out of a lifelong interest in the paranormal ... we're firmly on the way to a Ghostbusters film that actually feels like a Ghostbusters film." 

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is in theaters Thursday.