Contains spoilers for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire delivered a much-anticipated sequel to the 2021 movie Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and while it was an enjoyable watch, it had its problems, not least a lack of clear focus on its main cast. That’s where any potential sequel needs to improve things.

In Afterlife, a new cast was established, with McKenna Grace and Finn Wolfhard playing Egon Spengler’s grandchildren Phoebe and Trevor. Carrie Coon portrayed his estranged daughter, while Paul Rudd played Gary Grooberson, her love interest. The cast was rounded out with Logan Kim as Podcast and Celeste O’Connor as Lucky Domingo, two young residents of Summerville.

All of these return in Frozen Empire, restarting the Ghostbusters business from the New York firehouse. Yet this film has a big problem: it doesn’t use its cast wisely.

Despite them being the lead characters, the film makes little effort to immerse them into the story. They have something of a peripheral role, hanging on the edges of the plot rather than being the driving force behind it. Trevor is reduced to something of a side character, with a sidestory involving his antagonistic relationship with Slimer who’s taken up residence in the firehouse’s attic. Gary is mainly there to tell the best jokes, with only a weak attempt to make him the stepfather of the family. Callie is perhaps the worst served, doing little to nothing in the film. Most of the substantial stuff falls on Phoebe, and while that’s not a bad thing, it could be more evenly distributed among the cast members.

It’s a pity, too, as the Spengler family has good chemistry and intelligent interactions. Each has their own skills: Trevor is a mechanical expert, Gary is the natural team leader, and Phoebe is a science genius. Granted, Callie doesn’t have any real skills, but she could either become the heart of the team or else play the role of odd one out, both good tropes that have plenty of potential, but they aren’t exploited.

None of this is helped by the movie having an even bigger cast list than Afterlife. Ray Stantz, Pete Venkman, and Winston Zeddemore are classic characters, and they deserve to be properly used if they’re included at all, but the film doesn’t stop there. New characters are introduced, such as Melody, Nadeem, and Dr. Pinfield, who take time away from the Spenglers while Podcast and Lucky are relegated to little more than cameos. With the addition of Walter Peck from the original film, the cast becomes bloated with no character able to shine through.

A more adventurous film would have put the Spengler famiy at its heart, and this is where Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire has a big problem. The film is simply too safe, to uninspired. Afterlife can be let off the hook in that respect because of the disastrous 2016 reboot turning fans away, and the sad death of Harold Ramis. This was a well-meaning, if safe, movie that was hoping to get fans interested again. With its successor, however, the ground had already been cut, and there was a chance to really stretch out with these new characters. Sadly, it wastes that chance.

Considering the less than outstanding box office, there might not be a sequel to Frozen Empire, which is a shame because there’s potential here. But it needs to stop playing it cautious, unclip the leash and run with it, giving us a new and exciting story with these interesting characters, and it needs to do it before it’s too late and another fandom loses interest over substandard fare.

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