Ghostbuster2: 80s Rewind Review

Well I guess we’re gonna have to take control!
Bobby Brown’s GhostBusters song stands out to me more than anything else when I recall GhostBusters 2. Not Viggo, or the river of Slime, or Sigourney Weaver and not even the Statue of Liberty Walking through New York City.. Bobby Brown’s song. And the video looks cool too, although it looks more like an ad for New York City tourism.

I have to say it: Ghostbusters 2 is just not as good as part 1. There.. I said it. I do recall that it had way more hype and anticipation than Ghostbusters 1. For one thing, there were no Terror Dogs. After seeing Dan Akroyd (the writer of Ghostbusters) speak on the DVD its easy to see he is the mad genius behind the whole thing. Harold Ramis (co-writer) mentions in the commentary on part 1 that Dan had originally wanted it to be about a future in which “ghost busting” is like a bug exterminator type job, blue collar and common place. Its easy to see that Dan was very much held back in his creativity.

Speaking of commentary, you won’t see that or any other extras on the GhostBusters 2 DVD, which, for me, makes it unbuyable. Correction, it has something on there about the GhostBuster’s cartoon but thats about it (unless you count scene selection).

I always thought the Statue of Liberty bit was corny (unlike the Stay PUft Marshmallow Man in part 1, which was somehow brilliant). The bad guy was kind of cool, but then he’s defeated by “NYC happiness” as soon as he’s about to put his foot in New York City’s collective ass (let me just say - New York City happiness is like saying “holy war” or “compassionate conservative” - a meaning contradiction. The cast was great (you can’t go wrong with Bill Murray & Rick Moranis) but the plot seemed too commercialized for me.

Another thing that really sucked to me was the GhostBusters II Run DMC rap. It is embarrassingly weak especially considering that I idolized these guys after Tougher than Leather.

Whatever is said about GB2, the GhostBusters franchise still captures the imaginations of people all over the world:
Return of the GhosterBusters
GhostBusters 3: Ghostbusters in Hell
GhostBusters Exteme

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