Bill Murray Fest: Ghostbusters II

1989 sequel

Rating: 9/20

Plot: Five years after the first movie, the heroic battlers of the paranormal have been forgotten and maligned by the city they helped save. They're ordered to stop trying to bust ghosts right before an ectoplasmic sludge below the city's streets starts unleashing a lot of slimy ghosts. Cue the Ray Parker Jr.!

This begs the question: Does Brian Doyle-Murray need his own fest?

This movie is a waste of everybody's time, and our hero Bill Murray doesn't even seem like he wants to be in the movie. He's the same character, but it's more of a half-assed shell of a Dr. Venkman, and you can tell Murray's heart just isn't in it although I did enjoy watching him with a baby. Aykroyd's still excitedly wide-eyed, almost like a man-child scientist, and Harold Ramis is probably just as good as Dr. Egon Spengler (just like typing that name), but the chemistry they had in the first movie just isn't there. Sigrouney Weaver and her chin are nearly superfluous, and Ernie Hudson makes you wonder why they even bothered having a fourth black Ghostbuster. Peter MacNicol overdoes things with one of the more ridiculous accents you'll hear in a movie, and Wilhelm von Homburg (the "Ugly German" who makes an appearance in my favorite Werner Herzog movie, Stroszek) at least looks cool in the painting. As a floating head, he kind of just looks like a guy in a really bad European metal band music video. I kept hoping that floating head wasn't the big Stay Puft Marshmallow Man moment, and then once I saw the Statue of Liberty walking around and Rick Moranis shooting his beam (have a more glorious five words ever been typed?) at a Jello mold, I kind of wished the floating head was. Speaking of Rick Moranis--he's so funny. Maybe he should get his own fest, too. When he asks the secretary, "Do you want to have something to eat with me?" where his voice deepens, it's borderline magical. Forget that I typed borderline there. It's pure magic! And I want him telling my children bedtime stories. Surely, he's got some book-on-tape work out there somewhere. Following all that, there's some Moranis Pants Bulge (great band name, by the way) and the threat of a sex scene that would have been the sort of thing to end humanity. You know who else is in this? Kurt Fuller, fresh off his work in No Holds Barred, that performance that almost redefined acting in a Brando-esque way. He's just as good here, obviously in some kind of career groove, although I was disappointed that there wasn't a single "Jock ass" line in the whole movie. Every single actor, however--and yes, I'm even talking about the god-like Rick Moranis--is overshadowed by the performance of the kid at the birthday party who says, "Oh, I thought it was gonna be He-Man." I can't find his name, but I can only assume he's gone on to do some amazing things, even if it's nearly impossible to top that moment in cinematic history where he says, "Oh, I thought it was gonna be He-Man." Movie magic, ladies and gentlemen, and the only reason why this would have been worth seeing in a theater because seeing half of the titular ghost terminators (Think that was one of the names brainstormed for this thing? Let's see Ray Parker Jr. write something catchy with that!) at a birthday party with a kid saying, "Oh, I thought it was gonna be He-Man," is the kind of thing that needs to be experienced on the big screen. The out-of-control baby carriage, Bill Murray shouting "You gonna come shake my monkey tree again?", pink burbling effects, silly cartoonish ghosts, lots of exploding things, a Titanic that looked kind of cool and was slightly less offensive than the Cameron movie, more exploding things, a courtroom scene with some ghost brothers that would have been an alright set piece if it didn't so closely resemble and not quite match the hotel ballroom scene from the first movie, and five minutes of a toaster bouncing around on a pool table? None of those things would have meant anything more on the big screen. Nor would the Statue of Liberty, after the fellows jizz all over it, and its improbable walk down the streets of New York. Why didn't Lady Liberty bounce around like that toaster anyway? And why were we just teased with Weaver's "Mommy's gonna take her shirt off, too" scene? And, I ask again, why do they even have a black guy? Probably for the same reason they had Run D.M.C., and not even those guys could save this movie. Odd since Run D.M.C. could save pretty much anything between 1985 and 1990.

I still can't remember if I ever saw this movie. Parts of it seemed so familiar. It's possible this is one of the movies I saw in a theater with the girl who just wanted to make out. That would make sense since seeing Rick Moranis does have that effect on females.