Ghostbusters II

It all begins years after the spectacular events that brought the first Ghostbusters movie to an epic yet humorous ending. The Ghostbusters team have gone bankrupt due to numerous lawsuits brought against them by bureaucrats after the property damage done during the Marshmallow Man incident years back (According to the movie timeline) and have gone their own separate ways. However, New York City is now in a state of danger when a mysterious painting of a 16th century Carpathian who lived during the 14th Century named Vigo begins resides at the Art Museum. Vigo, residing in the painting, causes weird things to happen. Also a massive river of ectoplasm (Red Slimy substance coursing through the city's sewer system) materializes from the negative emotions/bad vibes in the cities' citizens and feeds evil and hate into its citizens it comes into contact with. During an incident that occurs with a sample of the red slime, they discover that the ectoplasm if allowed too much negative emotions will explode with a cataclysmic amount of explosive force and wipe civilization off the face of the earth. Now the Ghostbusters have to team up again and lift the spirits of the New York population to fight the rising evil of Vigo's spirit and prevent disaster. However, the Ghostbusters team is viewed as psychologically disturbed by authorities and is in danger of being imprisoned at mental institutions. Not even Dana Barrett is out of the woods either. Worse yet, Vigo in his spirit form, is after Dana Barrett's infant son Oscar so he can transfer his spirit and life force into the body of Oscar so he can live again. With all of these massive obstacles, it's a dark yet fun adventure for the Ghostbusters team as they duke it out to save the future of NYC and possibly the world from total annihilation.

Bill Murray steals the spotlight as the loveable yet eccentric Peter Venkman whose highly humorous personality has nonetheless been in conflict with the various spirits and ghosts that have haunted the city and his life following the events of the first movie years before then. Rick Moranis' character Lewis Talbot is just funny, seeing him going from just a mere babysitter and job assistant to actually becoming an actual Ghostbuster towards the ending. Sigourney Weaver brings on an excellent and more dramatic role playing Dana Barrett. The rest bring on solid roles as well. The movie also is benefited from an excellent script and great and original plot. The special effects and the ghosts and such in the first movie while have scared the daylights me back when I was just a toddler when it was relatively new, look quite dated today but on here, they are a lot more improved and still are pretty scary, in an entertaining way. I gotta admit, I still love watching the ectoplasm and what it does. The seemingly opposite tone of the second Ghostbuster movie perfectly compliments the previous one so well. This movie in a way sends out a great message too of how the negativity of society has gotten out of hand recently (both around GB 2's release and today) and what the fallout could turn out to be. It's something to really think about.

I still to this day am baffled at the significantly lower amount of box office revenue that this movie generated when released back in 1989. While it may have in part due to the surprisingly darker tones that might have driven away those who were looking for more humorous story, it still is unbelievable that they considered this movie to be a 'flop'. This is far from a flop, in any stretch of the imagination. It mustered up 100 Million at the box office, far from a flop even though it wasn't as financially successful as the first one. Perhaps I might be sounding a bit over reactive due to the fact that I've been a fan of this incredible movie since I was around 7 years old when this came out but I think that the so called 'failure' of this film is one of the greatest injustices in the history of movies. It's a pity that they decided to not continue after this one. Then again, it's probably a good idea that they didn't, not because they would wreck the franchise with a third sequel that would've been weaker than the previous two but that at least they ended the movie series on a high note. "Ghostbusters II" in many ways avoids the so-called sequel slump that ruins many movies over time. It was a wise move to give the short-lived franchise a much more dramatic undertone and giving the "Ghostbusters" movie a new and original twist in storyline. It's a sign that they were branching out into new territory and it's a pity that the audience seemingly was not embracing this new change in tone. In fact, by simply making this one almost like a rehash of the first one would've turned out disastrous. Instead, "Ghostbusters II" Turned out to be a masterpiece and one of the greatest movie sequels of all time and I highly recommend that you buy this DVD today! Buy both of them. They are both worth owning!