At a time when legacy sequels seem to be the big thing in Hollywood, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise to see the Ghostbusters franchise haunting cinemas once again. Ghostbusters: Afterlife felt like a passing of the torch, a tribute to the original team which also handed the legacy of the series over to a new generation of busters – Phoebe (Mckenna Grace), Trevor (Finn Wolfhard), Podcast (Logan Kim) and Lucky (Celeste O’Connor). It was a meta-narrative about a father (Ivan Reitman, director the original Ghostbusters) handing his legacy to his son (Jason Reitman, director of Afterlife), presumably intended to be reflected in an audience of parents showing the film to their children. Unfortunately, it seems that even forty years on, Ghostbusters is still determined to bring the old band back together – even if it means pushing the new members aside – in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.

My big criticism with Afterlife was its third act: a retread of the original film’s plot with an ending which seemed to ignore the new characters in favour of the old favourites. Frozen Empire opens two years later, during which time the Spengler family (consisting of Phoebe, Trevor, Carrie Coon’s mum Callie and Paul Rudd’s science teacher / potential stepdad Gary) have all moved into the Ghostbusters’ old New York firehouse and taken up the mantle. Lucky is working with Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) in a Ghostbusters-adjacent organisation (which isn’t working with the Ghostbusters for unclear reasons), and Podcast is staying with Ray Stantz (Dan Ackroyd). It feels as though there’s a huge narrative gap between films, although it does allow Frozen Empire to begin with an established Ghostbusters team ready to face a new threat.

After a chilling (pun intended) prologue, this new threat doesn’t fully emerge until the third act, resulting in a distinct lack of momentum throughout the early parts of the film as the huge ensemble cast struggle for screentime. Not only do we have four original team members (also including Bill Murray and Annie Potts, both hanging around waiting for something to do), we also have the six ‘new’ Ghostbusters, as well as James Acaster’s dry scientist Pinfield and Kumail Nanjiani’s Nadeem, who’s linked to the main antagonist. There are far too many main characters to keep track of, and they all disappear for large portions of the film as the narrative struggles to maintain any kind of flow (count the number of times an awkward cut is abridged with some stock footage of New York).

Presumably the film’s lead is Phoebe, and while Mckenna Grace is good in the role, she’s kept separated from the other Ghostbusters (including her team from the last film) for a lot of the running time. There’s a potentially interesting storyline in which she develops a connection with a human ghost, questioning the ethics of what the Ghostbusters are doing, but the film never develops this beyond a superficial idea. Frozen Empire awkwardly jumps from plot point to plot point with the sense that its various characters and narrative strands would flow better as a TV series – and it’s easy to see how any of these ideas could be developed into 30–45-minute episodes. It’s so cluttered that it never manages to coalesce into a satisfying feature, especially with such an underwhelming final act.

Frozen Empire features plenty of call-backs, references, and fan service, but it all feels incredibly shallow and pandering. William Atherton returns as Walter Peck from the original film, who apparently hasn’t retired and has instead spent forty years trying to stop the Ghostbusters – despite how well that worked before. Slimer appears, alongside the Baby Yoda-wannabe Mini-Pufts, a visit to a familiar library and various other nods for fans to pick up. Yet new director Gil Kenan doesn’t shoot these characters or locations with a sense of awe or energy, nor are there any particularly funny jokes to be found in this sequel to a beloved comedy. There’s a Marvel-lite level of snark to the dialogue that becomes grating very quickly and isn’t at all in-keeping with the original film. In fact, the overall tone feels so ‘off’ that when the familiar Ghostbusters theme song plays at the end, it feels incredibly jarring with the rest of Frozen Empire. It comes across as just another reference to distract fans from the film’s shortcomings.

Ultimately, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is a bust. With the younger cast now grown up and separated, it lacks the childish charm of Afterlife, while the older cast have hardly anything to do, making it difficult to decide who this film is for. It feels both overstuffed and underbaked, with too many characters, too many plot threads, an overabundance of fan service and jokes that fall flat. Despite this, the cast are uniformly good (it’s clear Dan Ackroyd and Ernie Hudson are enjoying their returning roles), and some of the ideas are interesting – it’s just all wasted on a messy and unfocused script. Suffice it to say that Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire… left me cold.

(I’ll see myself out)

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is out now in cinemas