The Franchise File 3: The one that was the most hated sequel

 

 

Title: Ghostbusters 2

What Year?: 1989

Classification: Weird Sequel

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/4)

 

As I write this, I’ve been finishing up the last few loose ends from Halloween, and the present lineup has been right at the top. What crosses my mind was that sequels have always been where I diverge from the crowd. Sure, I trash actually bad sequels as avidly as anyone else, though very few have been anywhere the bottom for the kind of movies I deal with. The flip side is that there are a great many polarizing or entirely unpopular sequels that I regard favorably even compared to the original films. In my reviews, I have definitely focused on the sequels where I’m willing to argue. For this lineup in particular, I decided to take my time to come up with one that really needed my kind of treatment. That brought me to a case that I have long regarded as perhaps the most unaccountably hated of them all. I present Ghostbusters 2, quite possibly the most despised sequel I actually like.

Our story begins with a reintroduction to the heroes of the last film, now split up by bankruptcy and legal troubles. Peter Venckman is a basic cable host, Egon is doing conventional if sadistic psychological research, Ray and Winston are reliving the glory days at kids’ birthday parties, and Dana is a newly single mother by a guy who has come and gone off-screen. But something is brewing under the city, a pink slime that seems to feed on anger, strife and misery. It’s all just a harbinger of the emergence of Vigo, the ghost of a tyrant residing in a painting at the museum where Dana works. With help from her unrequited would-be love interest, the evil spirit prepares for his return, with Dana’s son Oscar as his vessel. It’s up to the Ghostbusters to save the day again- but they will have to beat a court order first!

Ghostbusters 2 was a 1989 fantasy/ science fiction film by Columbia Pictures, produced as the first and only direct sequel to the 1984 film Ghostbusters. The film was directed by Ivan Reitman (see Heavy Metal), with Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson (Congo) returning as the Ghostbusters. Sigourney Weaver, Rick Moranis and Annie also reprised their roles as Dana Barrett, Louis Tully and Janine Melnitz respectively. Max Von Sydow (see Flash Gordon, Never Say Never Again) performed as the voice of Vigo, with Peter MacNicol of Dragonslayer appearing as his minion Janosz. The film was released in parallel with the fourth and fifth seasons of the animated series The Real Ghostbusters, which the live-action sequel diverged from on a number of points. Official merchandising included games for NES and Game Boy. The film was commercially successful, earning over $215 million against an estimated $30-40M budget, but was poorly received by critics and fans. Reitman reportedly refused to take part in further installments of the franchise based on problems with the production. The second film has received some reappraisal among modern critics. It was not directly referenced in the 2016 reboot. It remains available on digital platforms.

For my experiences, I covered this franchise in most depth when I wrote up the reissues of the Kenner toys. As with many things, I knew of the franchise without really experiencing it first-hand, though for once, I can definitely recall seeing the original film at a quite early date. For me, the real experience was the animated series, and to the extent I can recall having an opinion at the time, I greatly preferred the cartoon. Once the show and the toys trailed off, the franchise slipped from my consciousness until one afternoon in ca 1998 I can clearly recall, when I found both movies being aired back to back on network TV. It was a rediscovery of the first film and my first encounter with the present one, and where I found far more to appreciate in the original, I felt the sequel to be on its level if not better. Ever since, I have been baffled by the hate it gets… up to about the time I bought a copy.

Moving forward, my foremost reaction is the already running theme, what the Hell did people want, anyway? In terms of the franchise parameters, this doesn’t build on the original like the undisputed “best” sequels such as Dawn of the Dead, or reconceptualize as boldly as the likes of Predator 2. What it does do is put the characters in new situations without changing their nature, which is plenty in itself. From the outset, we find the Ghostbusters in the aftermath of fame, leaving some of them wiser and others just disillusioned. The further story arc that emerges is one of far more complex problems that require both new tactics and genuine character development. That, in turn, offers some surprisingly sophisticated social/ political commentary. The mood slime becomes a symptom and symbol of human problems that can’t be defeated with proton packs. The apathy and flat hostility the Ghostbusters meet as they try to rally the city leads to both the funniest and most poignant moments of the film. A quote from the mayor is up there as my favorite from either film and in line for the “one scene”, “Being miserable and treating each other like dirt is every New Yorker’s God-given right!”

On the con side, this certainly one of the clearest cases of a sequel that was forced to be “trendy” at the expense of both creativity and faithfulness to the original. A curious consequence is that many of its “meta” gags and references specifically fail to account for the continued popularity of the franchise and especially the number of kids like me who were getting into it through the show. (The He-Man reference is probably nothing more or less than an indicator of how old the script must have been…) The big chip on my shoulder is the music. The original had a balanced mix of old and new pop music and a traditional orchestral score by Elmer Bernstein (see… Robot Monster?). The score by pop composer Randy Edelman is not an improvement, to put it mildly. Then there are repeated intrusions of the still-young rap craze, which I have long held up as responsible for the worst music in the history of modern media. (I’ve heard 1920s alleged jazz that’s about as bad, but how many people hear that spontaneously?) This isn’t even “that” bad, given that someone apparently paid enough for actual rap/ hip hop artists instead of a pastiche of a studio suit’s impression of the genre, but it’s one more thing that makes the movie feel more dated now than it would have at the time of its release.

That still leaves the simple question, what could they have done better? This is one thing I am actually good at. The first thing I would say, covering a major area I didn’t get to above, is that the effects should stay as they are. There’s already some very good touches, especially the bathtub of slime, the spectral nanny and a zombified fur coat that missed the cut in the first film, that don’t slow things down. On the other hand, we could have done with a lot less of Janosz. (I have a whole other rant about the same guy declaring himself ashamed of being in Dragonslayer…) My most radical idea is quite simply to lose Vigo entirely. The first act already does fine with the focus on the mood slime, so it was completely feasible to keep it there. The “what if” that rises to my mind is to have the slime evolve into a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man analog, and make the Statue of Liberty sequence an actual kaiju fight. It might not have “worked”, but this is the kind of creativity that should have been in play if the minds behind the franchise had been given free reign.

That leaves the “one scene” very late, and my choice was settled in the first viewing. A few minutes in, Dana seeks out Egon, who has gotten back in at the university. He is observing a man and woman from behind one-way glass who are clearly unhappy. He matter-of-factly explains that they have been waiting over two hours for what they think is a marriage counselling appointment. We only get brief glimpses of the couple, but that’s enough to make it clear that they probably need real counselling and definitely don’t need any more stress. It’s a brief glimpse of domestic and institutional dysfunction that sets up the more mature themes of movie. As the conversation winds down, Egon comes to another room where a little girl is happily cuddling a puppy. There’s every sign of enjoyment as he says, “Now, take away the puppy…”

In closing, what I come back to is the nature of sequels. The real common denominator is that they are set up to fail at both ends. It’s well-established that the studio system rarely backs a sequel ambitious enough to improve even modestly on the original.  On the other hand, audiences rarely help; they will say they want a sequel that is “better”, but routinely complain when it is different enough to have a shot at it. The culminating irony is that, if you judge the sequel by the ones considered at least arguably “best” in their franchises, you get an astonishing column of successes: Empire Strikes Back, Wrath of Khan, Aliens and even the odd “threequel” like Day of the Dead and Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (see my Raiders review/rant). If it takes 5 or 10 Futureworlds to get one Dawn of the Dead, it’s a small price to pay. In that company, Ghostbusters should stand as an example of how to be good enough. That’s enough for me to give a respectful farewell to a quite good lineup. “Choose and perish!”