The Spengler family returns to the iconic New York City firehouse where the original Ghostbusters have taken ghost-busting to the next level. When the discovery of an ancient artifact unleashes an evil force, Ghostbusters new and old must unite to protect their home and save the world from a second ice age. A film by Gil Kenan, starring Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Celeste O’Connor, Logan Kim, Emily Alyn Lind, James Acaster, Kumail Nanjiani, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, William Atherton, and Patton Oswalt.

New York, 1904. The firefighters are called to the Manhattan Adventurers Society. However, when they arrive, they are confused by the screams of people coming from inside a closed conference room, with no sign of fire. A firefighter touches the door and notices it’s freezing. His hand becomes frozen and gets stuck to the door. They manage to break it down with an axe. Inside, they are shocked to find all of the members of the Manhattan Adventurers Society frozen to death, as the entire room is covered in ice.

A firefighter approaches a mysterious figure with closed eyes, wearing ancient armor, sitting in a corner holding a strange-looking orb. The mysterious figure wakes up. Suddenly, the frozen men in the room shatter into pieces.

Three years after the events of Afterlife, Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon), her boyfriend Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), her children Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace), along with their close friends Lucky Domingo (Celeste O’Connor) and Podcast (Logan Kim), relocate to New York City to assist Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) in reestablishing the Ghostbusters.

However, things don’t go as well as they had hoped. The Ghostbusters are summoned to Mayor Walter Peck (William Atherton), who is furious about the extensive damage caused by their recent bust of the Sewer Dragon. This damage includes three lamp posts, two parked Toyota Priuses, and an entire fleet of rental bicycles. When Mayor Peck discovers that Phoebe is only 15 years old, he threatens to shut down their operation for a child labor law violation. The Ghostbusters decide to take Phoebe, who is a minor, off the team.

Nadeem Razmaadi (Kumail Nanjiani) visits Ray’s shop and sells him a strange orb with ancient glyph markings. Nadeem claims it belonged to his late grandmother. Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) recognizes these brass objects as tools used to trap evil spirits. He tests the orb with his PKE meter. The PKE level goes off the chart: the meter breaks, sending vibrations throughout the building.

Left alone while Gary, her mom, and brother head out on a ghostbusting call, Phoebe wanders to a nearby park for a solitary chess game. There, she encounters a ghost named Melody (Emily Alyn Lind), who handily defeats her in several games before vanishing.

Gary worries that the Ecto-Containment unit at the Ghostbusters’ firehouse headquarters is nearing capacity, having collected spiritual waste since 1984. Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) takes the Spenglers and Gary to his privately owned paranormal research center where his engineers have built a larger and better containment unit based on Egon’s original design. The transfer, however, presents a challenge – it could take years to move the ghosts from the firehouse to Winston’s facility. Meanwhile, Trevor learns that Lucy is now working for Winston.

Winston’s engineer Lars (James Acaster), demonstrates a device that can extract residual ghostly essence from possessed objects. Ray and Podcast swing by the research center to see if Winston’s engineer can use this device on an orb that he recently purchased. Ray warns Lucky that the orb’s energy was so strong it fried the PKE meter.

That evening, Lars and Lucky attempt to extract whatever’s inside the orb, but fail miserably. The orb sends strange vibrations through the building, causing an electrical outage and disabling the proton fields used to imprison evil spirits in the research center. As Lars tries to take the orb out of containment, his hand frosts over. He also discovers that whatever’s inside the orb is so powerful it can command other nearby ghosts.

To learn more about the orb, Lars joins Lucky and Trevor on a visit to Nadeem, who found the orb in a hidden chamber inside his late grandmother’s apartment and decided to sell it for money. Inside the chamber, they find two strange-looking horns and a suit of ancient armor similar to what the mysterious figure wore in the beginning of the film. It turns out Nadeem doesn’t know much about his grandmother. Lucky, believing Nadeem might be possessed after using a PKE reader on him, brings him to Dr. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) who conducts a test on Nadeem and concludes that Nadeem is a descendent of the Fire Masters, a group of roving mythical spirit catchers who operated since ancient times.

Podcast shows his video recording of Lars’ demonstration to Ray and Phoebe, where he notices the footage captured ancient speech. Ray brings Phoebe and Podcast to see his old friend, Dr. Hubert Wartzki (Patton Oswalt), a Semitic philologist and linguist at the New York Public Library. Ray shows Hubert the photo of the orb, which Hubert instantly recognizes as the Orb of Garraka, a phantom God who was believed to have been captured and stripped of his horns. Vengeful, Garraka planned to raise an army of the undead and wage war on humanity. However, Garraka was defeated by a roving group of mythical spirit catchers called the Fire Masters, who used fire and brass to successfully trap the evil god inside the orb.

GHOSTBUSTERS: Frozen Empire, directed by a British-American filmmaker and co-written with Jason Reitman, suffers from a slow pace. The film also introduces a potentially interesting subplot involving a romance between Phoebe and the ghost Melody. However, this subplot is left undeveloped, and the screenwriters choose a gentler direction to secure a PG-13 rating, leaving the audience hanging.

Some of the characters feel too illogical and cartoonish. Take Mayor Peck, for example. His hatred for the Ghostbusters seems to consume him, driving him to destroy them despite the fact that they have repeatedly saved the city, possibly even the world.

The film builds to a visually impressive climax, showcasing the mysteriously fearsome ancient figure. His power is both mesmerizing and menacing, as he effortlessly freezes Manhattan and commands other spirits. However, the resolution feels rushed and unearned. This potentially formidable villain is defeated far too easily by a combination of an amateur Fire Master and the Ghostbusters. This lack of challenge undermines the tension built throughout the film and comes across as lazy writing.

GHOSTBUSTERS: Frozen Empire premiered in New York City on 14 March 2024. The film was theatrically released in the United States on 22 March.