MOVIE MUSIC UK

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

The fourth film in the ‘primary timeline’ series of Ghostbusters films that began in 1984, and the fifth Ghostbusters film overall, Frozen Empire picks up the story several years after the events of the last film, Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon), her boyfriend Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), and her children Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (McKenna Grace) have now taken up residence in the New York firehouse used by the original Ghostbusters, and are using the ghostbusting equipment to fight supernatural entities across the city. However, the Ghostbusters face several threats: New York Mayor Walter Peck (William Atherton), who has never forgiven the ghostbusters for the humiliation of him back in the 80s, continues to try to have them shut down on environmental grounds, and as a result the under-age Phoebe is barred from taking part in ghost hunts, leading to her becoming estranged from her family. Meanwhile, original ghostbuster Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) purchases a brass orb from local resident Nadeem Razmaadi (Kumail Nanjiani) for his occult books and memorabilia store, but quickly determines that the orb is actually a prison for Garraka, a malevolent god who has the ability to telepathically control ghosts, can lower temperatures to absolute zero, and can literally scare people to death. When Garraka escapes from the orb, Ray must come together with the new Ghostbusters – plus some old familiar faces – to stop him taking over the city.

Frozen Empire is directed by Gil Kenan, and like its predecessor Afterlife was written by Kenan and Jason Reitman, son of the original Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman. Unfortunately the film is something of a step down from the last one; while the special effects are at times dazzling, the screenplay feels very watered-down and overly-reliant on nostalgic attachment to the original 1980s films, moreso than most films of this type. While I enjoy seeing Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, Slimer, the ECTO-1, William Atherton, the Stay-Puft marshmallow men, and the New York City Library Ghost on screen as much as any other child of the 80s, their appearances here often feel more like lip-service than an integral part of the plot, which without their inclusion feels like a flimsy ghost-of-the-week story. This film has no emotional driver equivalent to the last film, which had Egon Spengler’s ghost play a major part in the finale, and some of the storylines somehow feel as though they were shoe-horned in, and then quickly abandoned. The performances from almost everyone feel weirdly low-key, and the humor is patchy. It’s a shame, because I love this franchise, and these characters, and I left this film disappointed in a Ghostbusters film for the first time ever.

One of the few things that really works well, however, is the score, written by Anglo-Italian composer Dario Marianelli. In composing the score for Frozen Empire Marianelli becomes the fifth man to score a Ghostbusters film, after Elmer Bernstein on the 1984 original, Randy Edelman on Ghostbusters II, Theodore Shapiro on the 2016 reboot, and Rob Simonsen on Afterlife. While Marianelli initially might seem an unusual choice to score a supernatural action comedy – his forte is more serious dramas and romances – he does have pedigree in more fantastical environments, having written excellent action scores for films like The Brothers Grimm in 2005, V for Vendetta in 2006, Kubo and the Two Strings in 2016, and Bumblebee in 2018. He also worked with director Kenan before, on the Christmas fantasy film A Boy Called Christmas in 2021. For Frozen Empire Marianelli combined his excellent personal orchestral sound with a great deal of loving homage to Elmer Bernstein, resulting in a score which is – for me – the best Ghostbusters score since the original.

I could almost repeat verbatim here what I wrote in my review of Simonsen’s Afterlife score – so I will. Like Simonsen before him, Marianelli liberally uses Bernstein’s sprightly and jazzy Ghostbusters main theme throughout, often deconstructing its parts to use as separate ideas, including the bouncy ragtime piano riff, and the recurring main 7-note melody. It appears prominently in numerous cues, notably the moody historical opening “Manhattan Adventurers Society,” the quirky “Firehouse,” the similarly playful “Chess in the Park” which underscores Phoebe’s first encounter with the Melody ghost, and many more besides.

What’s clever about this score, however, is that like Simonsen did, Marianelli actually does more with Bernstein’s score than Bernstein did – whereas Bernstein essentially kept the music with a similar tone throughout, Marianelli uses the deconstructed parts of the themes as an action motif, and as a ghostly suspense idea, deeply embedded into the fabric of multiple cues. Not only that, Marianelli also repeats several of Bernstein’s iconic orchestration touches, notably the tinkling piano motif that often is heard whenever ghostly presences are lurking, and the ubiquitous ondes martenot, an early electronic instrument which sounds like a theremin but is controlled with a keyboard to give the musician more control over its tone and pitch, and which Bernstein used all over the original film to give it an eerie sound. The ondes is again performed here by Cynthia Millar, who worked with Bernstein dozens of times over the course of their careers.

When he is not playing around in the Bernstein sandbox, Marianelli’s new material is excellent, and the action music is impressive. The action highlights include the martial and rhythmic “The Sewer Dragon,” which passes a repeated pulsating motif around the orchestra with great dexterity and terrific confidence. Elsewhere, Marianelli exhibits an almost circus-like playfulness in “Ray’s Occult,” uses stark dissonances to underscore Trevor’s encounter with the Slimer ghost in “A Ghost in the Attic,” uses more shrill dissonances to illustrate the threat presented by “The Orb,” and really goes for broke in the fabulous “Patience” cue which underscores the scene where one of the New York City Library’s famous stone lions is supernaturally brought to life, and attacks the ghostbusters. Marianelli’s consistent use of rousing, thunderous brass alongside swift and complicated string runs, dense percussion patterns, and prominent piano, is very impressive indeed.

“Chess in the Park” introduces the new theme for Phoebe and Melody, the melancholy ghost of a teenage girl who yearns to ‘cross over’ and be reunited with her parents. Marianelli’s theme is a duet for harp and ondes martenot backed by strings; it’s emotional and approachable but not romantic, and has a bittersweet core to it that accurately reflects the way the two girls bond over their respective dilemmas. Marianelli combines this theme with an elegant variation on the main theme in “A Tour of the Firehouse,” but then twists it into something more sinister during “Ionic Separator” and especially the brutally intense “Now He Can Control You,” during which Melody’s true motives for befriending Phoebe are revealed.

There is a subtle motif for Garraka, the malevolent god who brings the icy horrors to New York after being released from the orb, but it isn’t quite as prominent as one might have hoped considering his importance to the story. There are vague little hints of what eventually becomes the Garraka motif in “Manhattan Adventurers Society,” “The Orb,” and “Dadi’s Secret Room,” but it doesn’t emerge properly until “Dr. Wartzki,” the cue which underscores Patton Oswalt’s linguist character, who provides the film’s massive exposition dump by describing Garraka’s history and powers to the enthralled ghostbusters. Here, Marianelli uses cooing choral vocals, creepily descending woodwind lines, and tense string textures as the primary instrumental ideas for the character, and while it certainly makes for spooky listening, the motif never really establishes itself as something truly memorable or remarkable, which for me is a missed opportunity.

The finale of the film begins with “The Horns,” as Garraka is reunited with the source of his power and begins to wreak icy havoc on New York, and Marianelli allows Garraka’s motif to erupt into its most dominant statement. The rest of the score, from “Back to Headquarters” to the end of “Last Frozen Stand,” sees Marianelli intelligently combining the two classic Bernstein themes with the Garraka motif, and intertwining them with some impressively chaotic action material that captures the film’s sense of urgency as the ghostbusters try to come up with a plan to stop Garraka once and for all. There’s a fabulous rhythmic motif running through both “New Proton Packs” and “Possessor’s Mistake,” a festival of trilled strings and rampaging piano clusters backed by heroic brass, and the latter builds up to a wonderous crescendo at the end.

“Was Any of it Real?” is a dark, unnerving, tragic variation on the theme for Melody and Phoebe, but then “Last Frozen Stand” almost has a similar vibe as the finale of Avengers: Endgame, as Marianelli pits a heroic version of the Ghostbusters theme against the Garraka motif, as the surviving original Ghostbusters – Venkman, Stantz, and Zeddemore, plus Melnitz in uniform – combine with the Spengler family to try to stop Garraka’s plan from coming to fruition. The two-cue finale in “The Thawing” and “In the Fabric of the Universe” is calmer and more intimate, with the latter cue especially containing an emotional final statement of the theme for Melody and Phoebe as the ghost realizes that she has the power to ‘cross over’ and be at peace. The cascading piano accents in this cue are vintage Marianelli, just gorgeous.

One of the things I noticed about Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire in context is that it is quite significantly dialed down in the final sound mix, which means that the only way to fully appreciate the detail of what Marianelli is doing is via the album. It’s a shame that this seems to be the norm these days, and it does a disservice to what Marianelli was trying to achieve, because when you actually sit and listen to it it’s very impressive. The references to Elmer Bernstein’s original melodies and orchestrations are judged perfectly, the action music is rich and vibrant, and the theme for Melody and Phoebe is lovely. Perhaps the only let down is the lack of a truly memorable and powerful villain’s theme for Garraka, but even with that caveat in mind, this is still worth exploring. As I mentioned earlier, for me, this score is probably the best Ghostbusters score since the original.

Buy the Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire soundtrack from the Movie Music UK Store

Track Listing:

• Manhattan Adventurers Society (1:56)
• The Sewer Dragon (4:09)
• Firehouse (0:58)
• Ray’s Occult (1:53)
• A Ghost in the Attic (1:23)
• Chess in the Park (2:28)
• When the Light is Green… (1:19)
• Paranormal Research Center (3:09)
• A Call (0:40)
• The Orb (1:52)
• A Tour of the Firehouse (3:07)
• Slimer (1:13)
• Dadi’s Secret Room (1:32)
• Should We Investigate? (1:46)
• Dr. Wartzki (3:52)
• Patience (3:04)
• Golden Years (1:11)
• It’s Your Turn (1:46)
• Ionic Separator (3:58)
• Now He Can Control You (1:11)
• The Horns (1:45)
• Back to Headquarters (1:06)
• New Proton Packs (2:21)
• Possessor’s Mistake (2:02)
• Was Any of it Real? (2:18)
• Last Frozen Stand (4:11)
• The Thawing (1:52)
• In the Fabric of the Universe (3:22)

Running Time: 61 minutes 24 seconds

Sony Classical (2024)

Music composed by Dario Marianelli. Conducted by Tim Davies. Orchestrations by Geoff Alexander and Dario Marianelli. Additional music by Jody Jenkins and Sam Rapley. Original Ghostbusters themes by Elmer Bernstein. Featured musical soloist Cynthia Millar. Recorded and mixed by Laurence Anslow and Nick Wollage. Edited by Dominick Certo and Stephen Perone. Album produced by Dario Marianelli.