GHOSTBUSTERS II (1989)

GHOSTBUSTERS II (1989)

Tagline: Be ready to believe us.

(Comedy, Action, Who You Gonna Call?) [PG]

Don’t worry, she’s tough, she’s a harbor chic. 

This time the Ghostbusters have been long disbanded and each of them is doing something equally distant from ghost busting. After Dana reports her baby stroller taking off down the street by itself she goes to Dr. Egon Spengler for help. Egon brings Ray into the fold and of course, Winston and Peter aren’t far behind. After drilling in the street to find a pink sludge that has paranormal properties the group is arrested and nearly put in jail when out of a sample of sludge two ghosts appear. It becomes apparent the world needs the Ghostbusters once again, but can they handle an evil tyrant sorcerer named Vigo the Carpathian from the 16th century who wants to bring about the dawn of a season of evil? 

So I am not sure if I mentioned this in my GHOSTBUSTERS review, but back in the day, I pretty much wanted to be a Ghostbuster. My favorite of the group was always Winston in spite of the fact that he gets some flack in STRANGER THINGS Season 2. After the previews for this came out, I was so excited I almost threw up. 14 year old me was literally freaking out. So naturally, when I got to finally see this thing I cannot tell you how massively disappointed I was. I mean, I hated this thing so badly that I purposely acted like it never happened. Part of the problem is that we had 6 seasons and 4 episodes of “The Real Ghostbusters” cartoon that had dozens of single episodes that would have made incredible movies given a decent script. It was literally one of the best cartoon series of all time so I don’t buy the excuse that we couldn’t have gotten a better story. 

I am not going to get into too many tidbits about this film because it’s been out forever and there are a million of them but one thing I found interesting is that the large Vigo painting is actually a photograph that hangs in the offices at Industrial Light and Magic. I was there in 2015 but must have missed seeing that. In spite of hating this when it came out, I think I have actually seen it over 100 times at this point and don’t even own it because of that. I can practically play the entire movie in my head, having said that, I might buy the set at some point just to have it. 

What is strong about this movie is that it has a lot of great one-liners a lot like the original. I mean, come on, there’s always room for Jell-O? The other strong thing about it is that the effects had advanced 5 years from the first film and as a result, nearly everything looks slightly better, there are a few exceptions like the “gate ghost at about the 1-hour 19-minute mark. The overall look of the ghosts was meant to be less scary because the cartoon had become so popular that they were expecting a lot of kids would be watching this movie. This is also the reason that Venkman isn’t nearly the creepy stalker horn dog that he was in the first movie. For me, these were all positive changes to what we got on screen even though I don’t mind creepy-looking ghosts. I also loved that we got all the mainstays from the original movie back because even without secondary characters like Louis Tully, it wouldn’t have been the same. 

What falls flat in this one is the final act. Right up until about the 1 hour and 25-minute mark, we had a pretty freakin good movie going on here. Then all of a sudden this damn thing jumped the shark, it nuked the fridge, it took a relatively solid flick and fun flick and turned it straight into toon town. It drove me nuts when I saw this as a kid and it still drives me nuts to this day. This ends up being one of the sequels of the 80s that just didn’t deliver what it could have and it sucks. This thing is by far the worst of all the GHOSTBUSTERS films. I wish all the good things they did could have fixed the last act, but the spiral downhill and the hideous soundtrack are just too much to blow off. 

Overall I gotta give this thing a 3 out of 7 and it probably deserves far worse. The fact that this didn’t get a 2 out of 7 is strictly because I gave it a nostalgia point.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF COLUMBIA PICTURES AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.