Ghostbusters II (1989) | We're Back! A Nostalgic Movie Review

Now, we're going to take a look at Ghostbusters 2, starring the same cast as the original. Only this time, the team is back five years later after a restraining order has prevented them from acting as paranormal investigators, and they have to go up against a river of slime underneath New York City and an evil Carpathian wizard back from the dead. This is Ghostbusters 2, the review. >> [music] >> Ow. [screaming] Heat. Happy Halloween. [laughter] >> Making one great movie is difficult. Typically, making a sequel to one of the greatest comedies ever made, it's next to impossible. Ghostbusters wasn't just a hit. It was a cultural phenomenon. In 1989, Ghostbusters was everywhere. There were toys, comic books, Halloween costumes, lunchboxes, and the real Ghostbusters animated series was at the height of its popularity. But where were the liveaction Ghostbusters? They hadn't been seen on screens since 1983. The original film had long been aired multiple times on television. Then after five years, five long years, on June 16th, 1989, the Ghostbusters returned. For me, this wasn't just another movie. This was the very first time I was able to see Ghostbusters on the big screen. And honestly, I don't think I've been as excited for a movie before or since. I still remember opening weekend, walking into the theater, hearing that familiar music, seeing Peter, Ray, Egon, and Winston together. Again, this wasn't watching a worn out VHS tape where the movie was recorded on a television release. This was Ghostbusters on the biggest screen I'd ever seen. After the movie, we went to Hardies. At the time, the restaurant had embraced the film. They called themselves the official Ghostbusters 2 headquarters. I remember getting one of the Slimer sundaes, a Ghost Blaster, and one of the Ghostbusters 2 cups. Unfortunately, they didn't have free balloons for the kids back then. Movie promotions felt like events that just don't really happen anymore. The movie followed you home. Restaurants, toy stores, television, everywhere you looked, Ghostbusters was waiting for you. I even had one of the Ghostbuster 2 poster books that I got from Scholastic. It was one of the last things I ordered through Scholastic before we moved to our new house and I had switched schools and I thought I'd never get it. But the school contacted my mom and said the order was in. So, she went and picked it up and brought it home. And immediately I started flipping through it. I remember putting one of the posters on the bedroom door that separated my room from my mom's room. I remember my mom attempting to cover my eyes when Dana took off her shirt. Hey, it was the 80s and Sigourney Weaver in a bra was a neon sign welcoming me to manhood like many other boys my age. By 1989, Ghostbusters wasn't just a film anymore. It had become a franchise. the real Ghostbusters was at the height of its popularity, which is why they shaved Ernie Hudson's mustache for the sequel so that he'd better match his animated counterpart. I still don't understand why they didn't hire him to voice the animated Winston. He was Winston after all. Instead, the role went to Arsenal Hall. Kids knew these characters. We knew the proton packs. We knew the Ecto1, now the Ecto-1A. We knew Slimer, who in the original movie never really had a name. He was just known as the onionheaded ghost in the scripts or the ghost of John Belalushi. Ghostbusters 2 wasn't introducing these characters. It was bringing back our old friends. One thing I don't think it's talked about enough when referring to Ghostbusters 2 is the soundtrack. Bobby Brown produced a lot of music for that soundtrack. His music defined that transition from the 80s to the 90s. Say what you will about the man and his personal struggles with marriage and substances, but his music gave the film more life than what it already had. The original Ghostbusters soundtrack absolutely deserves legendary status, but Ghostbusters 2 captured something completely different. To me, it represents the exact moment when music began to transition from that of the 80s sound to that that would become the '9s sound. You can actually hear that transition. It's like a musical time capsule. And then there was Run DMC and their version of the theme song. I still remember its television premiere. We had just gotten cable in our apartment. My mom often had MTV playing if we weren't watching cartoons. I was sitting on the living room floor. cream colored walls, popcorn ceiling, brown trim, orange and brown carpet that somehow managed to be ugly even by the 1980s standards. Our giant console TV sat directly under the bay window. And I remember sitting as close as I possibly could to the TV. I didn't want to miss a single second of this new music video. Hearing the siren, our initial introduction to the video was car door opening, Ghostbusters stepping out, and then Sigourney Weaver. Run DMC in this video portrayed the Ghostbusters and managed to bring Sigourney along for the ride. She was a superstar at the time. So why not? Those memories have become almost as meaningful to me as the film itself. Ghostbusters 2 takes place 5 years after the original. The Ghostbusters have fallen from celebrity status. Their business has collapsed. Peter hosts a ridiculous TV show. Ray owns an oult bookstore. Winston has gone back to ordinary work. Egon continues his research. Ray and Winston work together to bring the Ghostbusters to parties. Dana returns, but this time she's not involved in the orchestra. This time she's an art restorationist, and she has an infant son named after Hot Dog. Lewis is there, too. He returns as a tax lawyer, having gotten his law degree at night school, and eventually becomes the Ghostbusters full-time accountant. Janine returns with a new look as supernatural events begin happening again. The team reunites to face Vgo the Carpathian, a tyrannical 17th century ruler attempting to return through a haunted painting using the city's negatively charged psychomagnetic slime. It's one of the stranger ideas in the franchise, but it works just like the original. Ghostbusters 2 relies heavily on practical effects, miniatures, matte paintings, creature effects, optical composition. The slime looks better than ever. It looks like a living entity rather than just something dripping off of the walls. The courtroom ghosts remain one of my favorite sequences. VGO is very intimidating. He kind of reminds me of a blonde, clean shaven Undertaker from WWE. In fact, that would have been the start of the Undertaker's WWE career, pretty close to it. Anyway, if only the Undertaker had entered the WWE just a couple years sooner, we might have seen him as VGO the Carpathian. And it's very clear that the Undertaker's dead man gimmick of 1998 with the kind of shoulder pads took clear inspiration from VGO the Carpathian. Seeing the Statue of Liberty walking through New York is every bit as memorable as Staypuffed. Bill Murray has somehow become even funnier in this movie. Peter's still sarcastic, still observant, still pretending not to take anything seriously. I absolutely loved his trench coat. And when I first saw the trailer as a kid, I thought he was wearing a bathrobe. Then I finally saw the movie and I realized it was one of the coolest trench coats I'd ever seen. And the fact that it works on Bill just as much as it did on Sigourney. For those of you who don't know, Dana Barrett was wearing Peter's coat during the climax of this film. I spent years trying to find a coat just like it. Still no luck. There's some that have come pretty close on eBay, but people win a fortune for them. And I'm not looking to contribute to scalpers. I'll keep looking. If I had to pick my favorite scene, it'd be the courthouse scene. Everything about it works. The comedy, the action, the Scalary brothers, and one moment that my friends and I recreated constantly as kids when the Ghostbusters and Lewis peaked around the corner like the Three Stooges often did, we probably did it a hundred times. Now, this is where my opinion has changed slightly over the years. For years, Ghostbusters 2 was my go-to Ghostbusters film. I often skipped over the first Ghostbusters film in favor of Ghostbusters 2, primarily because of the music and the more updated style. But 10 years ago, something changed. I watched both films back to back and I realized something I'd never quite noticed before. Aside from the music and the updated uniforms, Ghostbusters 2 follows almost the exact same blueprint as the original. Why wouldn't it? First movie did so great. Why fix what isn't broken? In the first film, it begins. The Ghostbusters hadn't even started yet. Second film, Ghostbusters have been forgotten and have moved on with their lives. The first film, they slowly build. Second film, they rebuild. Dana becomes connected to the supernatural in both films. She's central to the plot. Government official creates problems. The city becomes overwhelmed. A montage scene occurs at the midway point that shows them busting ghosts, something that's sorely lacking from the newer films. As paranormal activity continues to grow throughout the city, song plays over top, making the scene feel very much like a music video. A giant walks through New York, the Ghostbusters save the day, and there's a celebration. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though. It works. It worked the first time. It works again. But once I recognized that structure, I began appreciating the original so much more because it wasn't reinventing the wheel. It was creating it for the first time. The original Ghostbusters film became my favorite once more. Ghostbusters 2 got demoted to my favorite sequel. That's the difference. We have a toaster at my office in the workroom and I put a sticky note on it to label it just as I do everything else in the morning. You know, I make the coffee and I put fun little labels on them because some of our staff like one pack of coffee and and other staff prefer two packs of coffee. So, I do fun little labels. You know, one time I did Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2. First time I did, I did unleted and jet fuel. So, I decided to label the toaster as well. I took a sticky note, post it, taped it to the side, and it says maneing toaster. Played Jackie Wilson and I'll dance. It's been there for a few months now. No one's taken it off. I've begun watching the Universal Monsters movies each year at Halloween and I noticed something last year watching the original Dracula with Bella Losce. Dwight Fry's portrayal of Renfield in the 1931 classic Dracula starring Bella Losce is very obviously a huge inspiration for Peter McNichols portrayal of Yanos in Ghostbusters 2. So much so, producers thought he would be perfect to portray Renfield in Leslie Nielson's Dracula Dead and Loving It in 1995. If you watch the three films backtoback, you can see how much Peter McNichol took from Dwight Fry for the role of Yanosh and how he brought that into his portrayal of Renfield in Dracula Den loving it. I'm sure many moviegoers might have missed that. Dracula Den Loving It was a movie I grew up on. I watched it over and over just because it had to do with Dracula and because it had Peter McNichol in it who I had grown very fond of as Yanos in Ghostbusters 2. And that's something I've never really heard mentioned by any other critics about Peter McNichol. One thing that hasn't changed for me when it comes to Ghostbusters 2 is that it's still my number one Christmas boutique gift item. It's one of the last films on my Christmas movie playlist. I usually play it either day after Christmas or on New Year's Eve. It closes out the season for me. There's just something about the snowy atmosphere, the mood, the music, and New York in winter that makes it feel like part of the holiday season for me. Never mind the fact that in a couple of the montage scenes, the Ghostbusters are wearing Christmas hat, Santa Claus hats, or that the climax of the film takes place on New Year's Eve, and that the Ghostbusters come out of the museum as everybody else around is singing Oling Zang. And yeah, I know I butchered that name. Sumi, it might not officially be a Christmas movie. At least it's rarely ever advertised as such. But in my house, it's always been a Christmas film. Ghostbusters 2 had an impossible job. Following Ghostbusters was never going to be easy. Does it repeat some of the original ideas? Absolutely. Is it as groundbreaking as the first film? Probably not. But is it still funny? 100%. Does it still have incredible special effects? Without a question. Does the cast continue to have amazing chemistry? Without a doubt. And perhaps most importantly, does it still make me smile every time I watch it? It does. and I watch it multiple times a year along with the first Ghostbusters film along with Afterlife and to an extent Frozen Empire. Ghostbusters 2 may no longer be my favorite movie in the franchise, but it will always be one of the most nostalgic for me because unlike the original, I got to experience this one from the very beginning. I got to be a part of that fandom that went to see it in theater opening weekend. I got to experience going to the official Ghostbusters 2 headquarters and trying one of their Slimer sundaes and having the Ghostbusters cup that wasn't just purchased off of eBay. It's a memory that no amount of criticism or changing opinions can ever replace. That's nostalgia that takes me back to a time of childish wonderment and imaginative play. I've enjoyed being able to share my love of Ghostbusters with my kids, though my son doesn't really watch it as much anymore. My daughter does. She'll often watch it with me. No matter what movie I decide to watch, and I've already told her that once I pass away, I she'll be inheriting my Ghostbusters collection. My oldest when they were younger would watch the movie, the original film on a loop to the point where they could quote the movie by heart, line by line, scene by scene, as it was playing, right along with the characters. And at the time, they were only about five years old. I still close my eyes and hear them in my mind in their little voice speaking the lines right along with the actors and that memory always puts a smile on my face. Let me know your thoughts about Ghostbusters 2 in the comments below. Do you feel the same? Do you think it's better than Ghostbusters 1? And let me know if you feel the newer films are missing something by not including the montage sequence. Happy Halloween. >> If you enjoyed that video, make sure you check out one of these two playlist for more videos just like the one you just watched. I've been Shannon. This has been Kamagum TV, the only place on YouTube where all geek culture collides. Take care, geeks.