Two-and-a-half years after the original Ghostbusters got their much-delayed revival in Afterlife (2021), the combined old and new characters return in Frozen Empire. The new film sees the combined Spengler family (Carrie Coon, Paul Rudd, McKenna Grace, and Finn Wolfhard) take over the family business at the old New York fire station, just as a new ancient and unearthly menace threatens the city. Gil Kenan takes over directing from co-writer Jason Reitman.

The problem with Frozen Empire is not that it is bad. I mean, the film’s not great by any decent measure. It is overly crowded, with too many characters and far too much finicky busywork in lieu of a decent story. I am pretty sure the story that it has does not entirely line up and make sense. It is also heavily over-burdened by continuity references and cameos; more on that momentarily.

The real problem with Frozen Empire is that there is no pressing reason for the film to exist. Now personally I enjoy a good sequel. I adore revisiting entertaining characters, and seeing their further adventures. The bottom line, however, is that a good sequel needs a solid narrative reason to exist. Frozen Empire simply does not have one. It has some solid elements, and individual scenes are enjoyable in fits and starts, but ultimately it all feels moribund and irrelevant. The Spenglers – Phoebe (Grace), Callie (Coon), Trevor (Wolfhard), and wannabe stepfather Gary (Rudd) – move to New York not because it makes logical sense for them to do so, but because the film needs them to. It is a similar case with most elements of the film. Certainly that isn’t unusual: commercial cinema shoehorns characters into situations all the time. The difference is that better films manage to paper over the cracks so the audience doesn’t notice.

It feels as if much more attention was paid to the film’s seemingly endless stream of cameos – both human and architectural – and continuity bits. Each is purposefully designed to give the nostalgists a pleasing little dopamine hit, but each helps to ensure that the Ghostbusters series cannot properly evolve or move on. What creative evolution that is present is weirdly wrong-headed. For one thing, there is barely a joke to be made this time around. In its place is a doubling-down on the sort of faux-Amblin 80s family entertainment. It worked reasonably well in Afterlife – until the original Ghostbusters turned up – but here it constantly chafes against those older elements.

It is worth noting there is a good cast here, including some nice supporting roles for Patton Oswalt and Kumail Nanjiani. As with Afterlife, McKenna Grace seems particularly good; I wish both she and her characters had a better franchise to inhabit. Gil Kenan directs serviceably, but there’s no real sense of a directorial identity here.

Sony clearly do not know what to do with Ghostbusters. Their ambition is massive – as a franchise that the studio owns, it is potentially a quite lucrative slice of IP. Their understanding of tone, genre, and storytelling, however, is wildly out of sorts. This reeks of being a film developed and micro-managed from the board room.

I noted the following when I reviewed Afterlife, but it bears repeating because Sony are continuing to make the same mistakes. The original Ghostbusters (1984) was a very specific film released at a very specific time in history. It was a film embracing the American exceptionalism myth that, in the lead-up to Ronald Reagan’s second election, was at an all-time high. It may have been ostensibly about ghosts, but what Ghostbusters was really about was running a small business. The film is dominated by talk of bills, pay cheques, contracts, mortgages, and other expenses. One of the key antagonists, Walter Peck (William Atherton), represented the Environmental Protection Agency and was demonised by the film for putting public safety ahead of the Ghostbusters turning a profit. It could not feel more like a film from 1984 if it tried.

Peck is back in Frozen Empire; one of the many needless cameos I referenced earlier. He is still being demonised, although this time it is close to impossible to work out precisely who he works for or what his job is. He has been robbed of meaning along with everything else. Ghostbusters was about Reagan’s America. Paul Feig’s 2016 reboot, which honestly is looking better and better with every passing follow-up, was about the place of women in science. Frozen Empire is about 120 minutes.

I feel sorry for Dan Aykroyd, who originated this franchise and clearly has a lot of love for it. He gets quite a bit to do this time around as Ray Stantz, and it’s rather sweet to watch. At the same time I desperately wish he could move on and generate something new.