Ghostbusters 2

Five years after the groundbreaking comedy, “Ghostbusters,” the sequel came out in 1989, “Ghostbusters 2.” This one a lot of people seem to dismiss, but I think that this film is still good and a good sequel to the first one. It is the not impossible basis of “Ghostbusters 2” that Manhattan, as one of the characters say, “is about to blow, like a frog on a hot plate.”

Everything that is channeling the people’s anger is a river of slime running in the sewer line. Obviously it’s not easy to tell since the people of New York are already rude to begin with. They knock someone off of their crutches and laugh when a baby’s carriage rolls out into the middle of First Avenue and is almost run over. Most of the locals will tell you that it’s just another day at the Big Apple.

That’s not what Dana Barrett, played by Sigourney Weaver, thinks, who is an art restorer. At the end of the first film, we get an idea that her and Peter Venkman, played by Bill Murray, would get together. In the five years between these two comedies, they break up, Dana marries someone else, has a son, and is now divorced, leaving her for Peter to get back together with. That’s just a sub-plot to the film though.

When Dana realizes that there is something going horribly wrong after her baby was almost run over, she goes to the Ghostbusters for help. Working together, they see what is going on in Manhattan and how an evil is out to get Dana’s baby, Oscar, played by William T. Deutschendorf and Henry J. Deutschendorf II.

I know that this doesn’t make a lot of sense, but Dana does get the chance to say this line: “Oh, Peter, the most awful thing has happened. The bathtub tried to eat Oscar.” Any movie with a line like that can’t be entirely bad.

“Ghostbusters 2” isn’t all that bad. Vincent Canby says, “In truth, the movie, strikes me as being far easier to take, funnier even, than the first film, which seemed overproduced and sloppy. ''Ghostbusters II'' seems more modest, less aggressive, not so oppressively extravagant.” I know that this film isn’t as good as the first one, but I think they are both just as good.

Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd handle the screenplay, who both know how Manhattan is like after spending just a few short minutes in the city: It’s the angriest place on Earth. Vincent Canby says when they recognize this, “Mr. Ramis, Mr. Aykroyd and Ivan Reitman, the director, have made a remarkably cheerful film. It has the weight and stylishness of designer toilet tissue, but it doesn't offend.”

Now the supporting cast is all just as good, since they are familiar faces from the first film. Most of them are really good friends, including Murray who plays Venkman as a really laid-back type of a guy, and, as his partners, Ramis, Aykroyd, and Ernie Hudson. Sigourney Weaver looks great as always and is in control even in the silliest moments, and Rick Moranis is just as funny as the Ghostbusters lawyer.

Vincent Canby says, “It is probably heresy to say to ''Ghostbusters'' fans, but the funniest performance in this film is given by Peter MacNicol, as Dr. Janosz Poha, a prissy but lecherous Carpathian art historian, the conduit by which the Evil One hopes to take over Manhattan (not having heard that it's already his).” This Evil One is a painting of Vigo the Carpathian, a seventeenth-century magician trapped in the painting, played by Wilhelm von Homburg and voiced by Max von Sydow.

Canby also says, “Even the special effects are more to the point of the comedy than they were in the first film.” I take it he loved this one over the first film, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Very oddly, this let’s our main heroes give their funny lines that we all know and love them to do, or how they react with most ease.

So if you like the first film, you should definitely check the sequel out, and at least give it a chance. I would also give this film a 10.

One final note: Ghostbusters 3. I have been hearing rumors on that movie for the past couple of years, but Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis seem to be having a tough time trying to get Bill Murray to sign on for the movie. However, I hear that they will be making the movie without Murray, so if that is the case, then I hope that it will come out soon.

Alright, I have done the two Ghostbusters films, what film do you think I will end “Halloween Month” off with? I think it would be appropriate to bring up a famous monster that everyone associates Halloween with.