‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’ Keeps the Franchise Warm

When Ghostbusters: Afterlife came back to give the franchise new life, there’s a worry if a sequel could keep the baton in the running or drop it. It’s safe to say the follow up, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is keeping this franchise in the running. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire has a hurricane of easter eggs and nods of nostalgia but the stand out factors of this film are the pacing and the theme of a family’s legacy. More specifically, the Spengler family legacy. We saw Phoebe Spengler (Mckenna Grace) in the last film take the reigns to embrace the Ghostbusting life of her grandfather and now we see what it’s like when her mother, Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon), brother, Trevor Spengler (Finn Wolfhard) and Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd) do the same. However, trouble arises for Phoebe when she’s put on the bench. The film starts off with a prologue giving us a hint of what lies ahead with the film’s big bad. We then cut to current day New York as the Spenglers and Mr. Grooberson are chasing a sewer dragon ghost through New York. They Spenglers have traded in the cornfields of Summerville, Oklahoma for the concrete Jungle in the Big Apple. We get a good sense of the family dynamic between the Spenglers as well as Mr. Grooberson trying to know his place between being seen as the unofficial step-dad or mom’s “friend”. The team is doing a good job chasing down the ghost but once Phoebe pops out of the gunner seat and starts letting the proton pack unpack that beam, trouble arises. The …