Ghostbusters – The Ice Menace: Back to the roots of the saga (review)

Gil Kenan mixes generations, from Dan Aykroyd to McKenna Grace via Paul Rudd for a new episode, certainly imperfect but clever and good spirited!

What exactly is a Ghostbusters movie? By going through multiple iterations we ended up getting lost, to the point that it is difficult today to define the DNA of a saga that has become polymorphous. So let's say that there are obligatory passages (the car, the ghosts, Bill Murray) but that we have to know how to bring them up to date. This is what it does The Ice Menacedirect sequel to The Legacy who had launched a new team of ghost hunters in pursuit of ghouls. In The Legacy therefore, Carrie Coon (who played Egon Spengler's daughter), McKenna Grace (his daughter), Finn Wolfhard (his son) and Paul Rudd (a science fan teacher), made up a dysfunctional family struggling with a menacing monster. Under the influence of Amblin, boosted by very nice Americana vibes and directed by Jason Reitman, The Legacy succeeded in reviving the Ghostbusters flame by taking it into the realm of the gently homage-filled family film. When The Ice Menace begins, we left the American countryside for… New York. And it's McKenna Grace who is sitting at the Ecto1 shooting station. The sequence is spectacular and sets the film on new rails, those of inflated blockbusters.

Contrary to The Legacy, the script is less interested in the characters (quickly dismissed) than in the visuals (the big bad is a marvel of design) and in a universe which is reminiscent of a cross between Del Toro and Spielberg for children. But the main objective of this sequel directed by Gil Kenan is not that: it is first of all a question of cramming in all the possible fetishes of the saga. The OGs (understand, Original Ghostbusters) still alive are all back, Walter Peck too, Slimer also, the Ecto-1 is upgraded just like the firefighters' cave… Very nice then, even if all this is essentially done by sacrificing the intimate pulsations which served as fuel for the previous film, and above all at the cost of an escalation of characters, story arcs and issues not all very interesting (nor necessarily well developed). Rest assured, it remains clever, good spirited (even Bill Murray doesn't seem to think only of the big check he's going to pocket) and behind the fan service that's sometimes a little rambling there are design ideas (from the universe to new monsters) which are enough to make this Ghostbusters perfectly recommendable. Okay, you know who to call now!