Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: March 22, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
46
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 50 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
29
Negative:
9
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyMar 29, 2024
Frozen Empire is a notable improvement on Afterlife – funny, silly, and a little scary, with its pockets full of hand-built doodahs and the occasional excursion into the realm of pseudo-mythology and parapsychology. Read full review
60
The New York TimesAmy NicholsonMar 21, 2024
“Frozen Empire” is an eclectic, enjoyable barrage of nonsense. Read full review
60
VarietyOwen GleibermanMar 20, 2024
You might say that “Frozen Empire” has to work even harder to invent a reason for itself to exist. Yet it’s a livelier movie than “Afterlife.” Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckMar 20, 2024
Nonetheless, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire tries hard, very hard, to satisfy the series’ fans with plenty of nostalgic throwbacks and mainly succeeds. Read full review
60
Total FilmJames MottramMar 20, 2024
Too many characters and callbacks plus a formulaic plot means Frozen Empire doesn’t touch the original movies, but it’s a likeable-enough brand extension. Read full review
55
The AtlanticDavid SimsApr 4, 2024
The result is a functional if unspectacular film that makes no outsize effort to speak to cultural conversations around the movie. Read full review
55
The Film VerdictAlonso DuraldeMar 20, 2024
The new Spenglers have the potential to be as memorable as the original cadre of Ghostbusters, but between the cameos by the 1984 cast (whom the film uses more as goodwill ambassadors than like the talented comic actors they still are) and the callbacks to Slimer and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, they tend to feel like afterthoughts. Read full review
55
The Daily BeastNick SchagerMar 20, 2024
It all resembles a lot of cosplaying, although its central failing is foregrounding cacophonous mayhem and middling melodrama over the drollness that defined the first two Ghostbusters movies. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 25, 2024
As scattershot and uneven as it is unnecessary, it fails to effectively build on the foundation laid in Afterlife while at the same time relegating the “old timers” into oddly-integrated super-cameo appearances. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshMar 22, 2024
Even this cast can’t save the rote machinations of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire as it dutifully delivers morsels of memory. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMar 21, 2024
Just about everybody on screen in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire lightens the load. But sometime around the eighth or ninth round of expository mumbo jumbo concerning the ectoplasmic nightmare about to happen, the movie starts moving sideways, not forward. Read full review
50
Washington PostTy BurrMar 20, 2024
The new film is professionally made, well-acted, entertaining enough, and possessed of no earthly reason to exist aside from the care and feeding of intellectual property. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireMar 20, 2024
Like Slimer shoving snacks in his ravenous maw, “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” tries to cram way too many characters, storylines and iconic images into its two-hour runtime. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonMar 20, 2024
Seeing the Ghostbusters in the Big Apple where they belong put a smile on my face, at least until I realized I was watching a sitcom about wiseass teens and their dopey parents. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineJustin ClarkMar 20, 2024
There are protracted moments of humor, fright, and pathos in Frozen Empire, but as it’s all so scattershot and disconnected, the film ends up being defined by its lack of conviction when it comes to exploring its ideas to the fullest. Read full review
50
Screen DailyTim GriersonMar 20, 2024
The clumsy mixture of nostalgia, scares, set pieces, sincerity and wisecracks never gels. Read full review
50
ColliderRoss BonaimeMar 20, 2024
Frozen Empire attempts to evoke the past with constant callbacks, while trying to make the audience care about a more modern story with characters for a new generation, and ends up failing on both counts. Read full review
50
SlashfilmEthan AndertonMar 20, 2024
A somewhat ambitious but messy and ultimately unsatisfying sequel, despite packing some decent laughs and a couple of genuinely exhilarating sequences. Read full review
50
Screen RantRachel LaBonteMar 20, 2024
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire has a lot of potential and a chilling new villain, but too many characters and a slower plot leads to dimmed thrills. Read full review
45
CNNBrian LowryMar 21, 2024
Granted, the cast is too talented not to conjure a few amusing moments, but it’s hard to escape the sense of a movie that’s sleepwalking through the old neighborhood as opposed to playfully strolling down memory lane. Read full review
42
IndieWireKate ErblandMar 20, 2024
This franchise might not be entirely dead just yet, but its latest resurrection doesn’t make nearly enough good arguments to keep pumping life into it. Read full review
40
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeMar 25, 2024
It’s not unenjoyable, just deeply unoriginal. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriMar 22, 2024
The jokes are witless, the emotions artless, and the film joyless. At the same time, there’s also little to repel or offend, which, after all the truly idiotic culture-war battles fought over the Ghostbusters franchise, probably counts as a win. Maybe one day we’ll get an actual movie. Read full review
40
EmpireAlex GodfreyMar 20, 2024
There was potential here, but Frozen Empire is an overpopulated mish-mash, with too many heroes to wrangle. What’s left is a bit of a gooey mess. We’ve been slimed. Read full review
40
Little White LiesDavid JenkinsMar 20, 2024
Everything about the film is undercooked and lazy, and one is led to hope that this franchise is put back in the deep freeze for a very long time. Read full review
40
Time OutHelen O'HaraMar 20, 2024
This sequel brings everything back to the original film – even recycling some of the same jokes. But they’re a pale echo of its greatness in an overly stuffed and only occasionally fun spectral adventure. Read full review
40
ScreenCrushMatt SingerMar 20, 2024
The movie around him is a mess at the best of times and a disaster at the worst, but Aykroyd always looks like he’s having fun, even if no one else is. Read full review
40
IGNTom JorgensenMar 20, 2024
Ghostbusters: Frozen Kingdom’s tiresome, bloated plot and expansive roster of characters will leave you out in the cold. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawMar 20, 2024
There are one or two laughs here and an attempt at a queer romance, but no real signs of life. Read full review
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