It's not terrible, but it's still pretty weak. I HATE the insanely stupid retcon at the start that resets all the progress of the first movie (and the story beats rehash the first film even more than the reboot did, just watch the Honest Trailers of it if you don't believe me), it's so stupid it almost feels like the movie assumes we're stupid enough to buy it (like it could have been forgiven if at least one character pointed out how stupid New York is for believing four guys with barely any money managed to cause an earthquake, create a centralized lightning storm, create convincing holograms of ghosts all through the city, make an animatronic zombie taxi driver, and of course create a skyscraper-tall Stay Puft robot).
But maybe they did think the audience was that dumb given they aimed GB2 more for kids, let's tone down the language, lighten up the jokes, make everyone act more cartoon-y in their performances, and throw a baby into it so the characters can goof around with a baby, totally what I wanted a Ghostbusters sequel to focus on (might have been more forgiving if it was Peter and Dana's baby, but nope they broke up just to have them do their romance progress AGAIN and the baby's dad is some off-screen rando. Err, yay?) It's just unoriginal and doesn't do anything with these characters that wasn't far better in the first movie. Heck, they don't even understand making the audience laugh since they have Janine date Louis because the filmmakers said she didn't have chemistry with Egon in 1 even though THAT WAS WHAT WAS FUNNY ABOUT IT!
Go watch the Ghostbusters cartoon if you want a more original continuation of the first movie.
The Ghostbusters reboot is average. It's amusing at times, falls flat at times, but since it doesn't involve any characters from the original movie it's nothing to get that upset about. Ghostbusters 2 doesn't get that excuse.
Frank Spencer: I felt this way about GB2 since I saw it in high school like 15 years ago. I also had some issues with Burton's Batman films before Batman Begins was announced (since that's another popular "oh, you all only hate on the good older films when the new ones came out!" excuse because heaven forbid someone else feel differently about a film). I also rank the Indiana Jones films as 1 > 3 > 4 >2. I'm sorry, not every "classic" film in a series is as beloved by everyone, don't try to claim it's only because we're trying to make newer films look better.
Oh yeah, I hate that Ghostbusters 2 implies the Ghostbusters spent the 5 years since the first film
not busting ghosts, it's the worst thing about the movie, Ghostbusters was one of those franchises like Indiana Jones where as a kid you liked to imagine your own adventures for them, 2 making the time between the two movies a dead zone is really lame.
Plus it is just so lazy how it follows the exact same story beats as the first movie, even as I kid I noticed that, I wish they could have come up with some way to structure the story that involved them still being Ghostbusters at the start
However what saves the movie is 3 things, it's still funny, there's a lot of great jokes, even the scenes showing what the Ghostbusters are up to in their separate lives are funny, which takes some of the sting out of it.
And the Ghostbusters are still recognizably themselves, it's just great to be able to spend more time with the characters, especially now considering it'll never be the original 4 together ever again, that really makes the movies flaws all the more forgivable.
And finally it had a great villain, I think that's what really saves the movie's story is for all the similarities to the first film the villain is very different than Gozer.
Fairly woke cast for 1997 - latino Bill Murray, goth chick, black dude, disabled guy
Political correctness was very much a thing in the 90s, it just wasn't taken to such absurd degrees like now.
At any rate a goth girl Ghostbuster is a
great idea.
Ohhhhhhh, I'm so excited!
If they had gone the route of the Ghostbusters brand becoming a business franchise in the universe they could done anything really. My idea is you have some guy with a failing GB franchise who decides to hire all women as a marketing stunt. He'd expect to hire a bunch of sexy blondes to drive business but gets stuck with a bunch of intelligent science chicks who end up being awful spokespeople. The original cast would basically be the head office who end up getting involved when the new crew stumbles on something huge.
That's a great idea and this time instead of NYC it could have been the Chicago branch of Ghostbusters, which have made sense given it was the cast and director of Bridesmaids.
I still have no clue why that wasn't the direction they took, it would have made so much more sense, but oh well, it doesn't matter anymore now that we're getting a proper third movie.
did not know about this! fascinating stuff.
hey did yall know President Trump, Superman, and the Ramones are all in the music video for Bobby Brown's "On Our Own", from the GB2 soundtrack. this video is really playing up the NYC aspect of the film (which was a huge part of it, that walking Statue of Liberty was a big deal)
Well I guess we're. gonna. have. to. take control!
Ghostbusters 3 already happened.
The video game was awesome, my only worry about 3 is that it might render the game non-canon, I hope it actually includes a reference to it (like a throaway line about "our second encounter with Gozer") or at least doesn't feature anything that directly contradicts the game.
