Ghostbusters II

Ghostbusters II (1989) is set five years later, and the team has broken up. They were sued over the damage at the end of the first film and banned from hunting ghosts. Ray and Winston do children's parties, Egon is in a laboratory, Peter presents a television programme. A channel is discovered running under New York: a slime that absorbs the city's bad feeling and grows on it. The idea is good: this time the evil feeds on the city's own mood. The trouble is the execution; the film repeats the first one's plot almost beat for beat. The Statue of Liberty sequence is the most memorable thing in it. The cast were reluctant to return and the script kept changing; it was still unfinished when shooting began. Bill Murray's disengagement is visible on screen, and in some scenes it works. It made good money but was counted a failure in the first film's shadow, which is why a third took so many years. The pitch to children is noticeably higher than in the first. The music and effects are good for the period. It runs 108 minutes. Good for: eighties comedy, fans of the first film, and family viewing. Less good for: it lacks the first film's energy and the plot is a repeat.