Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

After a chapter with the primary purpose of introduce a new generation of characters, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire feels more like nostalgic fan service.

It’s an odd and perhaps desperate bit of reverse franchise engineering that feels reluctant to commit to steering the venerable 40-year-old horror-comedy series in any definitive direction, maybe because there’s nowhere left to go.

In terms of setting, this installment shifts the action back to New York and to the quaint firehouse that spawned the 1984 original.

After having taken over the Ghostbusters operation from her late father in the 2021 reboot film, Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon) and her teenage kids Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) relocate from Oklahoma along with nerdy science teacher Gary (Paul Rudd).

But where they were once pop-culture folk heroes, they’re now an antiquated public nuisance, at least according to old bureaucratic nemesis Walter Peck (William Atherton), who’s now the mayor.

With the torch already having been passed, now the upstarts have to prove themselves all over again. Fortunately, old-timers Winston (Ernie Hudson), Janine (Annie Potts), and Ray (Dan Aykroyd) haven’t completely retired just yet.

After an eccentric visitor (Kumail Nanjiani) to Ray’s spirit shop sells him an orb-shaped family heirloom, it unleashes a powerful new demon with connections to ancient artifacts, secret societies, and parallel dimensions.

The escaped phantom is driven by vengeance and harbors the ability to freeze everything it touches — including ions from the Ghostbusters’ ever-reliable proton packs. It could take an unlikely partnership between Phoebe and an adolescent ghost (Emily Alyn Lind) to prevent Manhattan from enduring a new Ice Age.

The screenplay by Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan (Monster House), who takes over directorial duties for this installment, emphasizes self-referential humor that occasionally matches the mischievous spirit of the first film.

There’s an amusing mix of gadget and ghouls and some scattered laughs from the collection of sight gags and one-liners. But beneath the effects-driven mayhem, the film is more about recycling and recombining old ideas.

Naturally, it emphasizes spectacle over substance. However, the convoluted script veers erratically from one subplot to the next before setting up an obligatory final showdown that feels more chaotic than thrilling.

Apparently born more from financial than creative inspiration, Frozen Empire fails to steer the Ghostbusters franchise in any meaningful new direction.

Rated PG-13, 115 minutes.