Franchise Friday: Ghostbusters II (1989)
Is the sequel really as bad as its reputation suggests?
Last week, we tackled the question of why Ghostbusters is so beloved despite the attributes that would normally derail a film. This week, let’s talk about why Ghostbusters II is a disappointment, even as it tries its darndest to replicate the formula.
I know some people reading this are shocked at the suggestion that Ghostbusters II is a bad movie. For many kids of the ‘80s and ‘90s, it was beloved, the chance for further adventures with their favorite wisecracking paranormal exterminators.
I get it. If Ghostbusters was the first film I was truly obsessed with, Ghostbusters II was my first bona fide event movie. I read the novelization before the movie was released, bought the soundtrack featuring Run-DMC and Bobby Brown, and even had my mom videotape an Oprah interview with the cast (I was probably the only 10 year old clamoring to watch Oprah). On the day of the movie’s release, my mom and aunt took my cousins, siblings and I to Hardee’s to grab movie-related kids’ meals (complete with green slime ice cream and Ecto Coolers) and then to our local mall theater to watch Venkman and Company save the day. It might have been the summer of Batman and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but for me it was all about the return of the Ghostbusters.
As the saying goes, nostalgia is a hell of a drug. Ghostbusters II eventually took its place alongside Hook as a movie I loved as a child that, with adult eyes, was revealed to be a mess. But over the last few years, I’ve had occasion to go back and watch it again. And here’s the thing: While Ghostbusters II is not a good movie, I think there’s a little bit of charm that gets overlooked.
Repeating phantasms
There are various ways you could continue the story of Ghostbusters. The first film had the thread of entrepreneurs succeeding in the face of government red tape; why not continue with the Ghostbusters a global success and explore the ramifications ? The potential with the Ghostbusters creating an international franchise should have led to opportunities to combine numerous groups of comic actors and exploit their chemistry in a variety of settings; you could even have Aykroyd or the others cameo. Really, you should just need supernatural antics and a group of funny people to pull off a Ghostbusters sequel; it shouldn’t be that hard.
Much like with the first film, Aykroyd’s original concept for the sequel was to go big and weird. It involved witches in England and a giant undersea tunnel. It’s easy to see why something of that scope might not have been feasible, particularly as time dragged on — Murray, the first film’s secret weapon, disappeared for several years following the success of Ghostbusters and wasn’t keen on reprising the role — and the momentum seemed to slow. The success of The Real Ghostbusters Saturday morning cartoon brought a new audience to the material, who likely were more primed for Slimer antics and goofy slapstick than the witty one-liners and slobs vs. snobs humor of the first film. My guess is Columbia Pictures, already smarting from a previous CEO’s reluctance to do a sequel, knew that the IP would make money but that they had to capitalize fast. That, coupled with the cast’s own apparent disinterest, led to famous Hollywood approach to part twos:
Half-ass it.
Ghostbusters II is a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” sequel that doesn’t realize the first film was broken, it just somehow worked because of the strange alchemy between cast and crew. As such, it’s a collection of retreaded moments grafted onto a plot that feels dashed-together, lacking the wit that made the first film so indelible.
Rather than start with the Ghostbusters as global successes, it bankrupts them and sends them back to the basics; perhaps the only clever insight might be that it is, indeed, believable that New Yorkers would sue the people who stopped the apocalypse. Perhaps there’s a good story about the Ghostbusters building back the city’s trust, but really it’s just there to get things back in line with the tone of the first, where they have to rebuild the business. Once the gang busts some ghosts in a courtroom (in a special effects-heavy set piece that is impressive but lacks the energy and creativity of the first film’s hotel sequence), they’re welcomed back with open arms. There’s a montage, another villain threatening Dana, a walk down New York streets in some giant thing, and then a laser show to beat the baddie. It’s not necessarily an awful idea to hang the story on — although a living painting seems an oddly small threat after terror dogs and marshmallow men — just a lazy one.
The first film may not have had an overriding theme or satirical target, but there was enough lip service paid to ideas of blue collar capitalism, government overreach, entrepreneurship, and the supernatural to make it feel fleshed out, creative and smarter than it actually is. In Ghostbusters II, the targets seem to be art gallery owners with foreign accents and people who don’t like Ghostbusters. Even though this does have an overarching theme — that New York has become so heartless that it’s bringing evil to its surface — that feels pat and silly, a bit too Disney-fied for a sequel to one of the most beloved and proudly depthless comedies of the ‘80s.
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A strange mix
That “hug and get along” theme speaks to the weird tone Ghostbusters II tries to navigate. The first film was a phenomenon, and it became huge with kids. The cartoon series inspired a legion of action figures and toys. Despite the first film’s PG rating, it was decidedly not a kids’ film (the sequence with Ray receiving, um, oral satisfaction from a ghost went way over my head as a kid). But now an audience of tykes wanted to see their favorite heroes on the big screen, and you can feel Columbia Pictures pushing Aykroyd and Ramis’ script in a more kid-friendly direction.
The characterizations for the Ghostbusters lean harder into the broader tone set by the cartoon. Egon is more of a nerd, a kid who had no toys as a child except for a Slinky that he straightened (to be fair, Ramis lands that line). Ray’s childlikeness is exaggerated here and Annie Potts’ Janine goes from being a snarky receptionist to an over-sexualized love interest for Rick Moranis’ Louis. Even Slimer gets to come back and hang around the fire station, for no reason other than that he’s a giant part of the cartoon’s success.
The humor is broader, too, going for laughs from Peter MacNichol’s exaggerated European accent as Janosz. For whatever reason, not only is Ernie Hudson’s Winston not brought back until about 30 minutes into the movie (after being in the opening scene), he’s given a scene where he mugs like an idiot after encountering a ghost train. Throughout the film, you can feel the merchandisers playing script doctor: “let’s get a new look for the ECTO-1; create some new ghostbusting weapons; how about we put Slimer in a bus driver’s outfit...maybe we can sell that.” And whenever Ivan Reitman can’t seem to find a joke, he relies on Murray’s mugging, which too often feels smug, oddly inserted and beneath him (when Venkman has to make a JELL-O joke, the actor looks like he wants to die).
We should also talk about this movie’s Peter problem. Murray is easily the most charismatic and funny part of Ghostbusters, puncturing any pretense and seriousness as he jaunts through the movie. But there was always something he was pushing against; Venkman was trying to get a girl, talk down pretension or compensate for intellectual insecurity. Here, he’s just an asshole; Venkman waltzes into a room and commandeers it, but there’s no threat he’s taking on. In one scene, he picks up a cello and vamps for Dana’s attention. In another, he barges into an art gallery and annoys the workers. And the first film had the sense to know when to bring Peter down a peg; you can forgive the character when he’s covered in slime. But it appears Murray’s contract must have stipulated he remain goo-free. Despite the copious amounts of slime, Venkman is never covered in it and Murray is absent from most scenes of the gang creeping around under the city. He’s weirdly under-invested, even if he’s still the biggest personality in the room.
Aykroyd and Ramis’ script seems interested in going slightly darker — there’s a legitimately creepy sequence set in a subway involving severed heads, the red eyes on Janosz when he kidnaps Dana’s baby messed me up as a kid, and a subplot over Ray being possessed is hinted at here but played a bigger role in the original script. You can feel the tension between something slightly more ambitious and something kid-friendly, and it simply settles for bland familiarity. Even the film’s final gag, a Renaissance-era portrait of the heroes, just lands with a shrug.
Who Ya Gonna Call?
But here’s the saving grace: You can’t put this cast in a movie and not have some laughs.
In its first 30 or 45 minutes, before the special effects ramp up and the plot takes over, Ghostbusters II is legitimately funny. Venkman may overwhelm the movie later on, but few things are more perfect than Bill Murray hosting a talk show. Ramis burrows into Egon’s nerdiness in a very dry, sequence at his lab; he’s studying the effects of negative experiences on people’s spiritual energy. He delivers some bad news to Dana and, when her back is turned, he scans her. A sequence in which Ray, Peter and Egon get in trouble for digging a hole in the middle of a city street allows them to do some fun work.
Gene Siskel famously had a question he asked about whether a film was as interesting as a documentary about the actors having lunch. I’d love to see a movie where this cast just hangs out. When Ghostbusters II is just about the characters, it’s fun. I like Peter twisting Ray’s ear at the bookshop, and Murray and Sigourney Weaver still have strong chemistry. Rick Moranis may go broad, but it’s fun to watch him finally suit up as a Ghostbuster. And while MacNichol may turn to an accent for some cheap laughs, some of his line deliveries are pretty great (“why am I dripping with goo” and “he is Vigo! Before him, you are like the buzzing of flies” make me laugh). And Wilhelm von Homburg is a formidable presence as Vigo, even if he is largely relegated to being a floating head.
Ghostbusters II is only about 100 minutes long and it’s a painless watch. There are some laughs, and it’s always fun to see that cast together. But it never rises above “fine,” lacking the creativity, wit and focus of the first film and feeling oddly bland for a sequel to one of the most inventive comedies of its decade. Perhaps the magic could only work once and it was time to hand things over to a new cast.
Of course, when that happened, angry man-babies almost burned the world down. But that’s for next week.