As kind of a primer for some Halloween movie watching, my wife and I decided to throw on Ghostbusters 2. It's been quite a long time since I've watched the entire movie start to finish and for my wife she hasn't seen in since she was a kid (oddly I didn't even realize this year was the 30th anniversary of the movie).
Well, I watched it, I have things to say.
Firstly before I start ranting and getting a little nitpicky in spots I want to say that Ghostbusters 2 is a good movie, it just isn't as good as the original Ghostbusters. Like, if Ghostbusters is a 9.5/10 movie then Ghosbusters 2 is a solid 7.5/10. It's fine. It's not bad by any real stretch of the imagination.
1- The status quo of the first act is dependent on basically everyone forgetting what happens at the end of Ghostbusters
In what might be one of the single biggest plot pills audiences have ever had to swallow, Ghostbusters 2 opens with the Ghostbusters having been disbanned, out of business, sued by multiple agencies, barred from actually doing paranormal research together, and viewed as frauds by seemingly everyone. It's almost like Ghostbusters 2 exists in a parallel timeline where Walter Peck wins in the end.
Ultimately it feels like there's some serious backstory we're missing here that explains how everyone collectively forgot about a 200 foot marshmallow man walked down the middle of Manhattan shortly after everyone across town was seeing signs of the apocalypse and decided that the Ghostbusters faked it all. The weird thing about this story decision, in the full scope of the movie's plot, is that it's a completely unnecessary addition. If you remove all of the "the Ghostbusters are broke" stuff from the story and just assume that they've stayed in business since the first movie, the rest of the movie still works without a hitch. The entire mini arc of the Ghostbusters going back into business seems like it's only in the movie in order to justify them getting some new equipment and gear, which leads me to my second item.
2- The movie is a little too self aware and there's a stronger marketing influence
There's a bunch of things in this movie that feel too self aware that this is a sequel, and it gives Ghostbusters 2 an underlying feeling that marketing has crept into the production of the movie a little too much. The "Ghostbusters" theme song apparently exists within the movie's universe, the "who you gonna call?" tag line is dropped multiple times in the movie, the Ecto-1A has a giant "we're back" marquee on it, and the actual Ghostbusters logo used by the team is the same "2" logo used by the movie itself. The Ecto-1 gets refitted into the Ecto-1A (which, I have to say, now looks even more comically top heavy), a revamp that actually has no purpose in the movie what so ever; the new toys on the car are never utilized and no characters even acknowledge that the Ecto-1 has changed. It feels like a change that happened purely for the sake of selling a few more toys. The Ghostbusters themselves get some new alternate dark uniforms which feels like an excuse to get kids to buy new halloween costumes and not just recycle old ones from the first movie (this is admittedly a nitpick though since the team having back up uniforms makes complete sense). Also, this little shit getting a credit at the end of the movie reeks of toy selling.
3- The "everyone needs to be happier" message is a little too on the nose
The story hook for Ghostbusters 2 is that the negative energy from the citizens of New York is unknowingly fueling a supernatural threat that's planning on resurrecting itself. I actually really like the basic premise of the story and it's a good way to differentiate itself from the threat in the first movie. But man, shit gets a little too on the nose especially in act 3 when it comes to addressing the crisis. Ray's big hokey speech about not believing New York is this far gone, the entire city cheering as the Statue of Liberty walks through the city, and the evil pink slime being undone by everyone singing New Years jingles is just... a little... ugh... I dunno, too cheesy compared to the tone of the rest of the movie (and the first movie).
Also, I straight up need to complain about the Statue of Liberty thing. It's obvious that they were trying to one-up the craziness of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man from the first movie, but ugh, it didn't work this time. I understand the entire hook of "they need a symbol to rally around" in regards to defeating the evil pink slime, but there could have been a slightly more grounded way to do it. Maybe the symbol for this should have been the Ghostbusters themselves? This would have been a good way to tie the first act of the movie into the rest of the movie a little more, let the renewed hope in the Ghostbusters be the symbol that the rest of the city rallies behind and have that become the positive force against the slime?
4- Why does Viggo need a baby?
This is basically just an issue with the story not explaining something properly, so again I'm being nitpicky. Why does Viggo actually need to have a host body in order to roam the Earth again? He can easily influence the world from within the confines of his painting and at the end of the movie he even leaves the painting and takes on a physical form himself complete with some Gozer-tier super powers.
5- Dana Barrett's character arc in this movie sure is strange to me
So between movies; Dana and Peter break up, the break up is seemingly Peter's fault due to his refusal to commit, they basically ghost each other (haha) after the breakup, Dana goes on to get married, have a child, and get divorced, before Ghostbusters 2 starts up. Even at the start of the movie, Dana doesn't want to interact with Peter to the point where she tells Egon to not tell Peter that she reached out to them for help. Yet, the moment Peter walks into her apartment with the others (uninvited, I might add) she kind of abruptly does a 180 and immediately seems open to getting back together with them. And basically any time the two interact together on screen there's some variation of Dana fawning over Peter happening. It seems like a weird change compared to the Dana from the first movie who was way more reserved about Peter and his antics.
Now for some things I did like about the movie
Like I said earlier, the general idea of the Ghostbusters taking on a crisis that's fueled by negativity is a pretty solid premise and isn't necessarily just them fighting Gozer 2.0. Also, I actually really dug the subway sequence when the Ghostbusters are searching for the river of slime.
Ghostbusters 2 generally lacks more spooky and legitimately scary moments compared to the original movie, but the subway scene with all of the heads popping up around them was pretty on point. The humor of the movie is also a little better than I think I gave it credit for back in the day. Yeah, it's still not as sharp as Ghostbusters 1's humor but it holds its own. Also, shout outs to Peter MacNicol for giving the weakest and most hilarious handshake in the history of cinema.
Is there a way to "fix" Ghostbusters 2?
To reiterate I don't think the sequel is a bad movie by any stretch, but I do think the story could have been fine tuned a bit more to feel like a bit of a smoother transition from the first movie to the second. For example, the "Ghostbusters are broke" thing could have still worked but without needing New York to collectively forget how the first movie ended. How about this, the Ghostbusters are just running out of money because ever since the Gozer incident, along with the Ghosbusters simply doing their job, paranormal incidents have been dramatically decreasing and the revenue stream just isn't coming in anymore? The original movie does establish that the approaching arrival of Gozer was causing a spike in paranormal activity, so it would make sense that post-Gozer there would be a decrease in the Ghosbusters' workload.
The Ghostbusters just running low on funds could then be used as an explanation for why city officials don't initially believe the Ghostbusters when they say a new threat is building up underneath them. The mayor's assistant, the one who throws them into the mental asylum in the movie, could just say that this is a made up scheme in order to boost the Ghostbuster's bank account (hell, why not just bring back Walter Peck to be that guy?) and then they ultimately realize the Ghostbusters were telling the truth the entire time. Then the Ghostbusters ultimately coming back from the brink of bankruptcy to save New York again could be the symbol of hope that New York needs in the third act instead of a Statue of Liberty that's piloted by an NES controller.
With that I don't have much else to say about Ghostbusters 2. Lets talk, Era.
