GHOSTBUSTERS 2

US, 1989, 108 minutes, Colour.
Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Sigourney Weaver, Rick Moranis, Annie Potts, William Atherton.
Directed by Harold Ramis.

Ghostbusters 2 comes five years after the original. Ghostbusters was an extraordinary comedy success. This film capitalises on the popularity of the theme and of the cast. They all return with vigour and humour. This film, however, is not as scary as the original. Perhaps we are familiar with the possibility of ghosts haunting New York and the fact that the Ghostbusters can get rid of them. However, there is a nice finale using an enlivened Statue of Liberty.

Peter Mac Nicoll enjoys himself as a European professor possessed by the portrait of a dead Carpathian tyrant. There is also a little baby called Oscar - and one critic said the title of the film was more properly Four Ghostbusters and a Baby. There are plenty of special effects, plenty of comedy sequences - all quite humorously inoffensive.

1. Popular comedy? As a sequel? In itself?

2. Five years later, audience memories of the original, action, the songs, the personalities?

3. New York City, the ugly city, New Yorkers with their right to be miserable and rude to everyone? The city streets, apartments, museums? Familiar landmarks? The Statue of Liberty?

4. Special effects, the sludge, the painting coming alive, the ghosts? Stunt work?

5. The song, the range of songs and the score?

6. The aftermath of the original: Peter and his psychic television show, the oddball guests about the end of the world, cats? Ray and his shop, his customers and their covens? Egon and his experimentation? Winston?

7. Dana and her baby, the initial sequence of it running through the New York streets and the traffic? Her seeking help of the Ghostbusters, their tests, digging up the road, finding the sludge, the police action, in court, Louis and his hopeless defence, the judge and his angers, the prosecution and her ridicule, the ghosts?

8. The sludge turning into ghosts, terrifying the people, the judge, his letting them go? The mayor and his concern, elections, his assistant and his scepticism?

9. The museum, the artwork? Vigo and his severity in the picture, coming alive? Jonash and his eccentric style, friendship with Dana, her work, the baby? Taken possession by the picture? Special effects, his wanting to get Dana's baby, power, and Dana?

10. The Ghostbusters back in business, the various jobs, .... as lawyer, their secretary back at work? The humour of their commercials?

11. The atmosphere of the end of the world, New York, Vigo and his power, the sacrifice of the baby and his reincarnation, the stunt work in his taking the baby from the ledge, bringing it to the museum? Dana's anguish?

12. The Ghostbusters and the mayor, their going down into the hole, jumping into the sludge, coming to the cafe and accosting Peter and Dana, their arrest, being sent to the institution?

13. Being sent on their mission, enlivening the Statue of Liberty, its progress through the city, into the museum, the sludge covering the museum? The people and their good vibrations, destroying the evil? The comedy with Louis thinking he had done it all himself?

14. The irony of the final Madonna-like painting of Dana and the Ghostbusters?

15. Pleasant comedy, fashionable comedy of the '80s about babies, the goodies and the saviours of New York City?