Review of Ghostbusters II (1989) by Filipeneto — 17 Feb 2018

This movie is the sequel to the popular film "Ghostbuster's", released four years earlier. The main cast it's unchanged, with Bill Murray playing Dr. Venkman, Harold Ramis as Dr. Egon (more geek than ever), Dan Aykroyd as Dr. Stantz and Ernie Hudson as Winston. Sigourney Weaver keep's the role of Dana and Rick Moranis continues to give body and talent to the bumbling Mr. Tully. In this film, the company will be re-activated to face a new danger, the evil Lord Vigo (Wilhelm Von Homburg), a medieval warlord who resurfaces in New York with the darkest intentions.

As expected, the booming and highly profitable "Ghostbuster's" quickly spawned a sequel. However, contrary to the bad reputation of this kind of films, this sequel reasonably maintain the level of the previous film, despite being sentenced to didn't become so popular. It's the curse of any sequel to a film that reaches such popularity. In fact, both the technical team and central cast are inherited from the previous film, holding the responsibility very well, although Murray can't have been so funny such we already know how he will behave. In addition to the natural predictability, perhaps the smaller laughter guilt is also the politically correct, a barrier that shouldn't be exceeded in family comedies, but that was tight in this film compared to the first one. In addiction, Peter MacNichol comes in the role of Dr. Janosz Poha, a completely new character that gave a breath of fresh air to the film. Years later, MacNichol will redesign this character in another movie, in Leslie Nielson's company (Dracula: Dead and loving it). The special effects continue to be important part of this film, although apparently become more subtle than the first one. The soundtrack is, perhaps, one of the biggest disappointments. Apart from the leitmotiv "Ghostbuster's" ever popular, it doesn't bring almost nothing remarkable.

Although this film suffer from common ailments to most sequels, especially those that were made to resoundingly popular films, it manages to works well and please the majority of the public who saw and liked the first movie. It's a film for all audiences, familiar, fun and popular even today.