Cast, Crew, and Other Info
Bill Murray as Dr. Peter Venkman
Dan Aykroyd as Dr. Ray Stanz
Harold Ramis as Dr. Egon Spengler
Ernie Hudson as Winston Zeddemore
Sigourney Weaver as Dana Barrett
Rick Moranis as Louis Tully
Annie Potts as Janine Melnitz
Peter MacNicol as Janosz Poha
Written by Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd
Directed by Ivan Reitman
Complete information is available from
the
IMDB.
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Past movie reviews can be found
here.
Premise
The Ghostbusters reform in time to prevent a
Carpathian tyrant from
using mood slime to take over the world.
High Point
Egon talks about his childhood, particularly the
Slinky.
Low Point
The treatment of Winston. By the time this came out,
J. Michael
Straczynski had already used the cartoon to bring
Winston up to par
with the rest of the team. By the time this movie
rolls around, he's
mainly window dressing, until the train scene. At
that point, he
doesn't seem fit to be a Ghostbuster. He just should
have been
treated with a lot more respect. He doesn't get any
of the funny
lines, either. When you see a comedy and one of the
four leads isn't
funny, that's a problem. (Dana's character was
always an anchor, but
the busters themselves need to be funny.)
Some people complain about the Janine/Louis bit
instead of
Janine/Egon. I say that it works. We have a five
year gap here.
Something happened in those five years that loosened
Egon up a bit.
Five years is plenty of time for Janine to finally
get involved with
him, help him loosen up, realize that they don't work
as a romantic
couple, and move on to someone else.
The Scores
This doesn't feel as original as the first.
Not only had the
novelty of ghost busting worn off in five years, but
the story
structure matches the original, redoing the "going
into business"
story that we had the first time around. I give it 3
out of 6.
The effects were more consistent than the
first, but it's
still got one scene that doesn't work. (In this
case, the second
visit to the river of slime.) I give it 4 out of 6.
The story isn't bad, but it's not as good as
the original.
The impact Viggo had on Ray was underplayed, and
should have retained
a few extra scenes in the original script to make it
seem like more
than a gimmick ending. (I used to have the
novelization; there were
three other times that that particular plotline came
out.) I'm not
entirely sure how Viggo's master plan was meant to
work, and why the
solution used would counteract it. I give it 4 out
of 6.
The acting is good once more, although Viggo
wasn't much of a
role. I give it 5 out of 6.
The emotional response is good, but it's not
the "out of the
park" hit that the original was. I give it 5 out of
6.
The production is the biggest difference
between them. For
music, Randy Edelmen is no Elmer Bernstein.
Similarly, the loss of
Laszlo Kovacs was profound; Michael Chapman's not
bad, but he's not
Kovacs. One of the editors was changed, too. In
fact, most of the
crew seems to have been changed, and the new group
just didn't get the
same feel that worked so well. I give it 3 out of 6.
Overall, it's worth seeing if you're a fan
of the original,
but it's just not that same iconic product that it
was trying to
follow. I give it 4 out of 6.
In total, Ghostbuster 2 receives 28 out of
42.
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