Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan take the second step after Ghostbusters: Legacy: in an attempt to take a shot at the rim and one at the barrel, sometimes they stumble, sometimes they get up, in general they continue to believe. Our review tries to deal with the titanic undertaking.
Phoebe Spengler (Mckenna Grace) is in an unpleasant situation: he has his destiny of Ghostbusters at hand, but is forced to occupy the rear, when a mission to New York with mom (Carrie Coon), Brother (Finn Wolfhard) and stepdad (Paul Rudd) causes the usual upheaval of Ghostbusters… and the authority imposes them, as she is still fifteen years old underage, not to work. And yet – backed emotionally by Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) – could be the key to understanding a new very cold threat that weighs on the Big Apple…
With Ghostbusters: Ice Menacewhich comes after the even more threatening and difficult to break ice of Ghostbusters: Legacy, we are really in trouble. I’m in trouble Jason Reitman And Gil Kenan, still together as screenwriters, but with an exchange of directing/producing roles. We’re in trouble too observers or criticsresigned to being crushed byarmy of nerds and/or cosplayersready to reproach us for a haughty distance fromvisceral love who feel for the world of Ghostbusters. I am then stuffed back into a internal struggle which I personally had already experienced while reviewing Ghostbusters: Legacy.
Legacy had a fascinating soul, a sincere parallel between the young protagonist Phoebe and the director Jason Reitman, who went in search of their own roots in a past they admired. It was the soul that “unblocked” the impasse of the Ghostbusters brand, embracing the almost religious reverence of nostalgia for the original filmat the same time playing the classic card of “soft reboot“with intelligence, in the name of the futureEgon Spenglerof theHarold Ramis disappeared in real life too. However, it was a card that couldn’t be played twice, so Glacial Menace would be on card there first, real and dangerous, road test of the extended Spengler family and the key chosen by Reitman and Gil Kenan for Ghostbusters. And your arms sink a little when you realize that they still have… took time.
If Legacy in fact attempted to calibrate the fanservice with a more personal approach, a different setting, Glacial Menace embraces him without hesitation, to (un-)dead body, moving to New York. Locations, instruments, situations, even shots throw in the towel to give the passionate public what they want not so much to see, but to to reviewas ritual of belonging to the fandom. A symptom of this surrender is the relative expansion of the participation of the old Ghostbusters: they are not really co-stars as the promotional material would have you believe, but theirs cameos are however enlarged compared to Legacy. In particular it Stantz by Dan Aykroydalso co-executive producer, is committed to guaranteeing the older audience the legitimacy of the new protagonists, “escorting them” for several scenes: worrying that there is still a need for it, after Phoebe and the others had already been introduced to us in the previous chapter. And it remains a formal act of presence, which also takes minutes away from fresher and more sacrificed characters (Wolfhard is practically abandoned to argue with Slimer). Almost no scenes with Ray, Winston (Ernie Hudson), Janine (Annie Potts) and Venkman (Bill Murray) seriously needs their characters on a narrative level… and the script struggles to contextualize them. And there’s a reason.
Rotating on Phoebe, on his family affairon his adolescent crisis and on his desire to grow fastera part of the soul of Ghostbusters: Ice Menace belongs to a different genre from the original onewhich could also have been aimed at teenagers, but he wasn’t talking about teenagers. Jason Reitman believes in female family storieshas done this his entire career, and Mckenna Grace she has a very effective and tender stage presence, something already evident in Legacy: at this time she has few witty lines, she channels Egon less and looks more for herself, with the grandfather’s character veering from surreal comedy toslightly painful freak ambiguity. It is no coincidence that, in the overloaded script that follows many characters in a somewhat chaotic way, Phoebe and her husband stand out. Grooberson by Paul Rudddad-in-law but who doesn’t feel like one yet: they have a parallel path and bring the emotional heart of the story. A heart that has nothing to do with Ghostbusters – Ghostbusters (1984), so it must be even more compensated by fanservice, otherwise “Ghostbusters” only the title would remain. Paradoxically, the female reboot Ghostbusters (2016) was more respectful of the original approach than this new approach. But he didn’t like it, because… he is tough, if you didn’t understand. This game will always remain difficult balancing actThe attempt to transform and evolve an anarchic and brazen story into a saga or “universe”.which did not start with those intentions.
But does Ghostbusters: Ice Menace succumb completely in an attempt to save the day, present and past, new and old stories? It takes a examination of conscience. As a commentator, for decades I wonder if Ghostbusters is a brand that actually survived the first filmsince – in all honesty – I already think Ghostbusters II (1989) a result far below the prototype, barely lifted by the idea of the self-propelled Statue of Liberty in the finale. At the same time I know that I have an empathetic duty towards the authors, and I cannot ignore when, beyond the defects of a work, there is a sincere heart that beats and miraculously holds on a shaky scaffolding. And when as a spectator I discover myself a little fan of all this jumble of characters in the finale, it means that some seeds planted during the film worked. Will have been Kumail Nanjiani, the most representative of the original student spirit, and which not surprisingly drags Murray into his most “classic” scene. It must have been the recovery of a real sense of supernatural threat, which may not be the grotesque horror of 1984 but at least it really tries, within the limits of today’s PG-13 sweetening. It will be that, in the end, its size of cheerful, family-friendly entertainment Glacial Menace brings it home, with an amused lightness shared by the cast.
And so, once again, Ghostbusters succeeds in making me park the critical sense, with a silent amazement at a phenomenon more mysterious than those studied by Stantz. Reitman and Kenan succeeded take time again, they set me up again. Will they succeed in the third round too?
