Ghostbusters 2 Released by:
Columbia/Tri-Star Home VideoFeatures:
1989; 108Min; Rated PG; Dolby Digital: 5.1 English, Dolby Surround: English, Mono: Spanish and Portuguese?; Anamorphic Widescreen (2.35) and Pan/Scan.Extras:
Theatrical trailer, Cast & Crew BiographiesReview:
Whenever a film is popular, a sequel is almost inevitable. When Ghostbusters was a tremendous hit in 1984, Columbia pictures had finally achieved something most other studio's had, they had established a franchise. Unfortunately for Columbia, over the past decade, the Ghostbusters' after-life has been rather bumpy. I believe there have been two or three animated incarnations of the characters, as for another film, rumors persist, but nothing solid has becomes of it. Dan Ackroyd has reportedly been working on a script for Ghostbusters 3 for the past five years, but Bill Murray hasn't seem very interested, and Ackroyd apparently will not shoot the film without him.All of the principles returned for the first sequel, Ghostbusters 2, but unfortunately, it came up with rather mixed results. The story takes place five years after the Ghostbusters' save new your from Goezr, but they are now faced with the fallout of their actions. Ray (Dan Ackroyd) and Winston (Ernie Hudson) are basically trying to live off the remains of the Ghostbusters' popularity, by doing party gigs. Venkmen (Bill Murray) has become a hack talk show host, while Egon has gone back to college to continue psychological research. While all this is going on, they are in court for all of the damage they caused in the first film.
Dana (Sigourney Weaver) is currently restoring paintings for an odd, and later possessed, man name Yosh (Peter MacDonald). Loomis (Rick Moranis) is now the attorney for the Ghostbusters. Got all of that? Good. At least Ackroyd tried to expand on the characters in this movie, I'll give him credit for that.
The movie basically centers around the affects of new painting in the museum where Dana works, as well as the slime that is associated with it. The new pink slime is basically a "mood slime," to use a phrase from Venkman. This new slime feed off of negative or positive emotions, and has been building up in an abandoned underground railway in New York. After the slime starts to raise hell in the Big Apple, the Ghostbusters are excused from their legal issues, and are asked to help combat the slime.
Ghostbusters 2 tried real hard to be a movie that lived up to the original, but as is normal for most sequels it falls short. The technical merits are tremendous. ILM was brought on board to create all of the new effects, as usual, they have succeeded.
The film's presentation is actually better than the original Ghostbusters, which ,even with the new anamorphic widescreen transfer, shows it age. Ghostbusters 2 is nearly flawless, I didn't even notice any film scratches. The new Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is also much better than the original, again a sign of age. While I've never been enthralled with this sequel, I've always wanted to complete my collection. For fans for the Ghostbusters films, this is a must have, if you never really like it, you should rent it and give it a second chance....
On a scale of 1 to 10, the movie ranks a 5 in my book.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I'll give this presentation a 6, with no Bonus Biscuits.
Dan Linzmeier, FIT Productions
Fitprod@aol.com
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