GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE

Here is the decision in full. This fourth trip out for the Ghostbusters is a competent, exciting picture — but it turns on a view of the afterlife that a Christian family can't sit comfortably under. The ghosts here have "unfinished business" that keeps them on the "earthly plane," and when they resolve it they "unite" with the Universe. There is no Heaven, no Hell, no God, and no real justice in this life or the next.

That's not a stray line of dialogue. It's the engine of the plot: a teenage girl helps a ghost "move on," and in doing so unleashes an ancient evil god. The occult isn't decoration here — it's the world the movie asks you to accept.

Add an implied lesbian attraction between two teenage girls, foul language, and supernatural violence, and the answer becomes plain. However well-made it is, this one isn't for your family. Skip it.

The Ghostbusters business has passed to a new generation in New York City. Gary, stepfather to 15-year-old Phoebe, leads the family in trapping a sewer dragon — and does enough damage that the outraged mayor benches Phoebe from future ghost hunts.

Frustrated and sidelined, Phoebe slips off to a nearby park, where she befriends a teenage female ghost named Melody. Wanting to help her new friend "move on," Phoebe reaches for the family's new equipment — and stumbles into something far older and far more dangerous than she bargained for. To stop it, the old guard and the new must team up.

Three stars, and here is what they mean. As spectacle, FROZEN EMPIRE delivers: it's packed with excitement and made with real skill. What it lacks is the one thing that made the 1984 original a phenomenon — its sense of humor.

The comedy engine of the first film was Bill Murray's Professor Venkman, and Murray returns here. But the filmmakers seem too timid to let him cut loose, apparently afraid he'll overshadow the rest of the cast. That fear needn't have cost anything — the fix is simply to give the other players great comic bits of their own. Without that, the movie plays more serious and scary than fun and funny. It's a capable film that misplaced its own reason for being.

FROZEN EMPIRE doesn't merely feature the occult — it's built on it. The whole story assumes a world of ghosts, spirits, mystical guardians, and an evil horned god trapped in a brass orb. That's a very strong occult worldview, and the film asks you to take it as the way things are.

The trouble deepens with what the movie says about death. A teenage ghost tells Phoebe she lingers on the "earthly plane" because of "unfinished business," and that once she settles it she can "move on" and "unite" with the Universe. Follow that out and you find a world with no Heaven, no Hell, and no God — and therefore no ultimate justice and no ultimate morality. Scripture says the opposite: God blesses those saved by His grace who love Him and their neighbor, while those who reject Him bear the weight of that rejection. Remove Heaven and Hell and you remove justice itself.

The film also inserts an implied lesbian attraction between the living teenage girl and the female ghost. Nothing is confirmed or acted upon; it's simply suggested.

Underneath the movie's ghost-story machinery is a real human ache — the longing to know what lies beyond death, and whether wrongs are ever set right. The film answers with the Universe. Scripture answers with a Person and a promise: "It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment" (Hebrews 9:27).

There's real skill on the screen here, and plenty of excitement. But a competent film can still be one to pass on, and this one is: its whole world rests on a false and finally hopeless view of death, with an implied teen romance and foul language besides. So here is our answer, the same one we opened with: skip it. Looking for something the whole family can enjoy instead? Try our latest family-friendly picks.