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CRUD Challenge: Ghostbusters 2
Dec. 10th, 2024 08:46 pmGhostbusters 2 (1989) dir. Ivan Reitman
It has been five years since the Ghostbusters saved New York City, and by extension the world, from the threat of Gozer the Gozerian. Due to the massive destruction caused by their struggle, the team was sued by multiple government agencies for the damage. At the same time, a drastic drop in paranormal activity allowed rumors spread by a certain hostile government agent that the Ghostbusters had actually used hallucinogens and special effects to create fake ghosts to defraud the public. Their small company was forced into bankruptcy and they were put under a restraining order preventing them from working as paranormal investigators.
Ray (Dan Ackroyd) runs a small bookshop and appears at children's parties with Winston (Ernie Hudson) (who apparently has no other income) in their old Ghostbuster outfits. But even the children have moved on, preferring He-Man as a cultural reference. Peter (Bill Murray) hosts a cable access show on the paranormal, but due to his reputation can't get the good guests. Egon (Harold Ramis) has done all right for himself, landing a research position at Columbia University studying whether human emotions have an effect on the environment.
Dana (Sigourney Weaver) broke up with Peter over his refusal to commit to the relationship, then married a fellow musician. But when that man got a lucrative job offer in Britain, he divorced Dana and moved, so that she is raising their baby Oscar (William and Henry Deutschendorf) alone. To have more time with her child, she took a temporary jub doing painting restoration at an art museum. Her boss, Dr. Janosz Poha (Peter MacNicol) has been hitting on her when not obsessing over his latest acquisition, a painting of alleged dictator and black magician Vigo the Carpathian (body by Wilhelm von Homburg, voice by Max von Sydow).
Once again, it's Dana who first notices that something eerie is going on when Oscar's baby carriage rolls off by itself and strolls right into the middle of the street. She contacts Egon to check into the matter, and specifically asks that Peter not be told. Peter of course finds out and invites himself along on the investigation to try and rekindle his relationship with Dana. He's still a sleaze so that part doesn't go so well, but he does start to bond with Oscar.
The former Ghostbusters (sans Winston at this point) investigate the street, and accidentally cause a blackout in the process of finding an abandoned tunnel with psychoactive slime running through it. This gets them arrested, but ghosts showing up in the courtroom gets the judge convinced to lift the restraining order.
This and a sudden rise in ghost activity needing busting allows our heroes to be back in action and again the toast of the town. Meanwhile, Janosz has become dominated by the spirit of Vigo, which is using the portrait as a channel to the living world. Vigo needs a human infant to possess at the stroke of midnight New Year's Eve to begin his comeback to rule the world. Janosz has just the baby in mind so that he can compel Dana to be his wife.
Things are about to become very bad indeed, for the slime is supercharged with negative emotions from 1980s New York City, and Vigo draws strength from that.
While the first Ghostbusters movie had been very successful, some of the people who'd be needed to make a sequel had a falling out, and schedule conflicts arose, so it took five years before this movie was made.
Good: Some great jokes, excellent special effects, guest appearance by the Statue of Liberty.
Less good: This movie's plot structure is eerily similar to the first one's, with many repeated story beats. The characters and situations are reset to very near the beginning of the first movie, so in a way this one ends with very little progress. (A notable exception is Dr. Venkman, who no longer hits on any woman that crosses his path. He's solely interested in getting back with Dana, even if he can't quite understand what he did to lose her in the first place. While he has to start at zero in that relationship again, at least we're not seeing him being a horndog to other women.)
Also, poor Winston is underused again.
It's notable that the success of the cartoon spinoff The Real Ghostbusters fed back into this movie. Mascot character Slimer (Ivan Reitman) appears even if he isn't properly explained, and in an effort to be more kid-friendly, the characters have cut way back on smoking and the sex talk.
Content note: baby in peril, Dana is seen in a bra and later in a towel, a bit of rough language, slapstick violence. Janosz is under the delusion that if he forces himself on Dana, she will grow to love him.
My DVD came with two episodes of the cartoon, "Citizen Ghost", which explains why the Ghostbusters let Slimer hang around; and "Brothers in Slime" which references the psychoactive slime from this movie (calling Vigo out by name) even though the events of the second movie could not have happened in nearly the same way in the cartoon.
Overall, it's an okay movie with its major flaw being that it's a little bit too much of a retread. Maybe we didn't need sequels and remakes, but here we are. Consider getting it in a set with the original. And of course, recommended to fans of Eighties comedies.
It has been five years since the Ghostbusters saved New York City, and by extension the world, from the threat of Gozer the Gozerian. Due to the massive destruction caused by their struggle, the team was sued by multiple government agencies for the damage. At the same time, a drastic drop in paranormal activity allowed rumors spread by a certain hostile government agent that the Ghostbusters had actually used hallucinogens and special effects to create fake ghosts to defraud the public. Their small company was forced into bankruptcy and they were put under a restraining order preventing them from working as paranormal investigators.
Ray (Dan Ackroyd) runs a small bookshop and appears at children's parties with Winston (Ernie Hudson) (who apparently has no other income) in their old Ghostbuster outfits. But even the children have moved on, preferring He-Man as a cultural reference. Peter (Bill Murray) hosts a cable access show on the paranormal, but due to his reputation can't get the good guests. Egon (Harold Ramis) has done all right for himself, landing a research position at Columbia University studying whether human emotions have an effect on the environment.
Dana (Sigourney Weaver) broke up with Peter over his refusal to commit to the relationship, then married a fellow musician. But when that man got a lucrative job offer in Britain, he divorced Dana and moved, so that she is raising their baby Oscar (William and Henry Deutschendorf) alone. To have more time with her child, she took a temporary jub doing painting restoration at an art museum. Her boss, Dr. Janosz Poha (Peter MacNicol) has been hitting on her when not obsessing over his latest acquisition, a painting of alleged dictator and black magician Vigo the Carpathian (body by Wilhelm von Homburg, voice by Max von Sydow).
Once again, it's Dana who first notices that something eerie is going on when Oscar's baby carriage rolls off by itself and strolls right into the middle of the street. She contacts Egon to check into the matter, and specifically asks that Peter not be told. Peter of course finds out and invites himself along on the investigation to try and rekindle his relationship with Dana. He's still a sleaze so that part doesn't go so well, but he does start to bond with Oscar.
The former Ghostbusters (sans Winston at this point) investigate the street, and accidentally cause a blackout in the process of finding an abandoned tunnel with psychoactive slime running through it. This gets them arrested, but ghosts showing up in the courtroom gets the judge convinced to lift the restraining order.
This and a sudden rise in ghost activity needing busting allows our heroes to be back in action and again the toast of the town. Meanwhile, Janosz has become dominated by the spirit of Vigo, which is using the portrait as a channel to the living world. Vigo needs a human infant to possess at the stroke of midnight New Year's Eve to begin his comeback to rule the world. Janosz has just the baby in mind so that he can compel Dana to be his wife.
Things are about to become very bad indeed, for the slime is supercharged with negative emotions from 1980s New York City, and Vigo draws strength from that.
While the first Ghostbusters movie had been very successful, some of the people who'd be needed to make a sequel had a falling out, and schedule conflicts arose, so it took five years before this movie was made.
Good: Some great jokes, excellent special effects, guest appearance by the Statue of Liberty.
Less good: This movie's plot structure is eerily similar to the first one's, with many repeated story beats. The characters and situations are reset to very near the beginning of the first movie, so in a way this one ends with very little progress. (A notable exception is Dr. Venkman, who no longer hits on any woman that crosses his path. He's solely interested in getting back with Dana, even if he can't quite understand what he did to lose her in the first place. While he has to start at zero in that relationship again, at least we're not seeing him being a horndog to other women.)
Also, poor Winston is underused again.
It's notable that the success of the cartoon spinoff The Real Ghostbusters fed back into this movie. Mascot character Slimer (Ivan Reitman) appears even if he isn't properly explained, and in an effort to be more kid-friendly, the characters have cut way back on smoking and the sex talk.
Content note: baby in peril, Dana is seen in a bra and later in a towel, a bit of rough language, slapstick violence. Janosz is under the delusion that if he forces himself on Dana, she will grow to love him.
My DVD came with two episodes of the cartoon, "Citizen Ghost", which explains why the Ghostbusters let Slimer hang around; and "Brothers in Slime" which references the psychoactive slime from this movie (calling Vigo out by name) even though the events of the second movie could not have happened in nearly the same way in the cartoon.
Overall, it's an okay movie with its major flaw being that it's a little bit too much of a retread. Maybe we didn't need sequels and remakes, but here we are. Consider getting it in a set with the original. And of course, recommended to fans of Eighties comedies.
