If you’re after a compelling premise for a film, you can’t do much better than ghosts rampaging through a city that need to be caught. After all, who are you going to call?

But as this latest instalment in the franchise shows, ghostbusting is a trickier business than you might imagine.

After the events that took place in Oklahoma, Gary (Paul Rudd) and the Spengler family Callie (Carrie Coon), Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) relocate to a certain firehouse in NYC.

They are now bone fide Ghostbusters, ridding the Big Apple of spectral nuisances, despite the fact that their original disposal unit appears to be running at over capacity.

Meanwhile original Ghostbuster Ray (Dan Aykroyd) has a visitor to his shop with a number of curiosities for sale. One catches his eye more than the others, an ancient orb. On closer inspection, and using his PKE meter, the readings are off the charts. Little does he realise that it contains a phantom god who’s a little tired of being locked up and is looking to come out and make a real impression on New Yorkers, one that will chill them to the bone.

There appears to be a real struggle as to what to do with the franchise. There was Paul Feig’s 2016 all-female reboot version, which didn’t work at all. And then 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which introduced a family element with the Spengler’s, that again, just didn’t feel enough like a Ghostbusters flick.

Director Gil Kenan, whose last film was the surprisingly watchable Christmas film A Boy Called Christmas, and who also co-wrote Afterlife, gets promoted to behind the camera for this sequel.

He wants to play to the strengths of the franchise, so it’s set in its home of NYC and in the iconic firehouse. It also wants to stay connected to the original, by including three original Ghostbusters, Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson and Bill Murray. It also borrows heavily from its story, whereas it had a keymaster and gatekeeper, this has a firemaster, played by Kumail Nanjiani.

In trying to offer something original in itself, it throws in a curious girl meets spirit love story that simply doesn’t sit well in the grand scheme of things, in an awkward, wedged in sort of way.

The result is a convoluted mess, with a franchise caught in limbo, with one foot in the past, and one in the present, with the issue being they’re pulling in different directions. This leads to having Rudd as a secondary figure, with very little for him to do, with about as much screen as Murray, who clearly had an hour or two free to shoot all of his contributions.

With the script so busy and muddled, the film lacks cohesion, with elements from the original being thrown in, such as a brief appearance by Murray, as well as the use of the original Ray Parker Jr. track, just in a blind panic to maintain the legacy.

But the fact is, relying on the Spengler family just isn’t the right way to go about it. It’s a tenuous link, and they just don’t have the same larger than life personalities needed for some serious ghostbusting.

It may well mean that yet a further reboot is necessary, in an attempt to recapture the original’s entertaining spirit, if they’re to keep this flagging franchise alive.