Sony has released another trailer for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. This time around, everyone is back: Venkman, Zeddmore, Janine, Slimer, Librarian Ghost, Walter Peck, everyone. In fact, though we’re sure Egon’s relatives get some screentime, they get a lot less attention in THIS marketing campaign. There’s probably a reason.
I finally got around to seeing Ghostbusters Afterlife, the movie this is a sequel to, and….I was not impressed. The new characters did not work for me, and weren’t nearly as fun to follow. I like Ghostbusters, and I like The Goonies, but maybe they don’t blend together quite as easily as Sony hoped they would. The only time I enjoyed myself was when the Original Guys appeared and started quipping just like they used to. This new movie seems to have taken that into account….and then some!
It takes a certain kind of SWAGGER to be a Ghostbuster. A big part of the appeal is that they face these terrifying horrors all the time and treat it just like a day at the office. By contrast, these kids barely know what they’re doing half the time. They don’t sell the exotic appeal of zapping ghosts into traps like Murray and the others do. And I don’t know whose idea it was to name a character “Podcast,” but I hate them.
The bigger problem is that eventually everyone who starred in the 1984 original is going to die, and THEN what will Sony do? They’ve had a horrible time trying to sell us on fresh-faced Ghostbusters, but it is not impossible. Extreme Ghostbusters, a cartoon from 1997, had a premise much like these sequels are using (torch is passed to a bunch of kids), and I didn’t hate that. Maybe next time they should try a live-action Kylie.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire opens in theaters March 22.
