‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’ review: Who ya gonna call to get your money back?

It’s a bust.

“Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” the terribly, if accurately, titled sequel to 2021’s “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” shows just how wrong a tried-and-true formula can go.

How could these filmmakers possibly fumble the simple plot of “Answer the phone, find the ghost, vanquish the ghost”? 

Start by playing up a wholesome family sitcom dynamic that sanitizes the old story into a forgettable “Growing Pains” with lasers. 

After the likable last film, the Spenglers have relocated from dusty Oklahoma to New York City, where grandpa Egon (the late Harold Ramis) and pals Peter (Bill Murray), Ray (Dan Aykroyd) and Winston (Ernie Hudson) first donned the beige suits and battled the Stay Puft marshmallow man. 

The quartet also fought Vigo the Carpathian and some angry pink slime in “Ghostbusters 2,” but let’s skip that.

Back then, the schlubby guys were mostly scientists. Eccentric, sure, but qualified. Well, now living in the famous Tribeca firehouse and driving that retrofitted hearse are a smiley high school teacher, a mom and two teenagers. Come on.

Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson are back in “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.” éColumbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

After defeating Gozer in “Afterlife,” Phoebe (Mckenna Grace), Trevor (Finn Wolfhard), Callie (Carrie Coon) and Gary (Paul Rudd) have taken Manhattan to bring ‘busting back.

But does the city want them to? When the clan wreaks urban destruction while trapping the “Hell’s Kitchen Sewer Dragon,” NY1 anchor Pat Kiernan critically recalls “the Statue of Liberty debacle of 1989.”

While specters are terrifying citizens, wimpy stepdad Gary frets about his relationship to new wife Callie’s kids. Who cares?

And 15-year-old Phoebe gets a half-baked coming-of-age plot, in which she befriends a sarcastic talking ghost named Melody in Washington Square Park. Since when do ghouls in this series start casual conversations? All of a sudden we’re watching moody “Casper.”  

Dan Aykroyd & co. run a paranormal research center. ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Aykroyd, Murray, Hudson and Annie Potts have returned. Their characters have opened a silly paranormal research center where they study little ghosts that they keep in cages. Aykroyd’s Ray also has a popular supernatural YouTube series.

These legends may be here for the fanboy nostalgia factor, but nobody claps at their overdramatic entrances anymore.

The original actors, well loved though they are, deliver one-liners like they’re guests on “Hollywood Squares.”

Indeed, the movie, directed with Nickelodeon levity by Gil Kenan, tries so hard to be funny and thus rarely ever is.

“Ghostbusters” was a groundbreaking mashup of horror and comedy in 1989. Many people thought the mix would never work, but Ramis and Ivan Reitman found the perfect balance of laughs and scares. 

“Frozen Empire,” however, goes overboard on the yuks, casting gifted comedians Kumail Nanjiani and Patton Oswalt. Funny though they are, they’re punchline machines. They make you miss wacky-yet-real personalities like Rick Moranis. 

Patton Oswalt and Kumail Nanjiani play comedic roles in “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.” ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Even Vigo, that torturing prince who lived in a painting in “2,” was a better villain than Garakka — a giant horned god (Murray cracks a “horny” joke) with the power freeze stuff. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Iceman from “X-Men” can do subzero tricks, too. What makes Garakka so special?

At least Kenan and Reitman returned the series to New York, where it belongs.

The truth, however, is that this franchise really belongs in the rearview mirror.