Why Ghostbusters II is Way Better Than Ghostbusters

I was inspired recently (if you call staring at the TV in a semi-comatose state inspired) to watch two iconic 80s movies--Ghostbusters and its sequel (that is, Ghostbusters II). The first was a revisit--I hadn't seen it since its initial release some 28 years ago. I vaguely remember being mildly amused and not terribly impressed back then. I'd never seen the sequel--most folks whose opinion I trust assured me that it was awful, a cynical cash-in on once beloved and inspired figures. What I found in 2012 surprised me a little--not that I found that I'd missed something in Ghostbusters all those years ago, but that the sequel is approximately 3 times the better film (which by no means makes it a classic, but it's still pretty enjoyable). Yes, that's an opinion, and you're probably thinking a really dumb opinion at that. So I guess I'd better be specific, going from the original Ghostbusters, and then, like the opening title tells us in the sequel, "5 years later...":

First off, Dr. Peter Venkman is a dick. Seriously. Check out his first scene, where he's torturing the poor guy and rewarding the hot chick in the "ESP" experiment, in order to get rid of the young man and bed the young girl. Like I said, dick. Now with Venkman's brand of dickishness, I'm touching on a huge cultural phenomenon. Murray as Venkman encapsulated a brand of humor that a whole generation--Generation X--took to heart as its own. Murray's whole "I can't really be bothered to pretend to be engaged in the story or this character, so I'm going to stay outside the whole movie and riff on it" attitude spoke volumes to millions of fans. While it's certainly true that you don't have to be "Gen X" to love Murray and Ghostbusters, I think it's also true that if you were to point to comedies that defined and glorified the Gen X attitude, Ghostbusters would rate way up there. All of that would be fine if it were also funny, but Murray carries that attitude all the way through the movie--when he's supposed to be facing down ghosts, when his friends are supposedly in great danger, and--millions and millions of devoted fans notwithstanding--I don't think it's terribly funny. Contrast that attitude with, for example, the Hope and Crosby "Road" pictures, where the heroes aren't taking anything in the movie seriously either, but that's the crucial difference--there's a real relationship between Bob and Bing, and they're in on the joke together. In the case of Ghostbusters, you've got Dan Aykroyd doing his damnedest to play a guy named Ray, you've got Harold Ramis throwing out the occasional improv-y non-sequitur but with no character to back it up, and you've got Ernie Hudson doing what he can with Token--that is, Winston--but Murray isn't joining in. Again, for the fans, that's the glorious point, but it's a point that eludes your faithful blogger.

Now--jump ahead to Ghostbusters II. Venkman is still a dick, but, huge surprise--the movie calls him on it. Now he's a dick with something to lose, and something to accomplish--win back Sigourney Weaver and prove that he can be a good dad.  It's a sappy character arc, to be sure, but it is indeed a character arc, and all of a sudden, we're watching a character in a movie--and, even better, a character who has to play with the other characters in order to get what he wants. We, as the audience, have a reason to care what happens. Again, it's a pretty frail reason, but compared to the first movie, it's a veritable Les Miz, with or without the songs.

This business of character brings me to the one scene in the original Ghostbusters that I really liked and that made me laugh. Ray, Winston, Egon, and Venkman are facing down Zool. Zool demands of Ray, "Are you a god?" Ray looks back at the guys, and Venkman is nodding encouragingly. Ray turns back to Zool and says with complete frankness, "No." Ray then gets blasted, leading to the one real laugh line of the whole movie, delivered by Winston: "Ray, when someone asks if you're a god, you say yes!" What's great about that whole sequence, topped by that very good line (the least they could do for Hudson is give him a laugh line), is that it comes from character--Ray is by nature too straightforward, fact-oriented, and honest to lie, even to Zool. Plus, there's that business with the nod from Venkman--Venkman is clearly trying to indicate to Ray that he should say "Yes," giving him an encouraging "of course you're a god" kind of nod. Ray, however, interprets the nod as "Be yourself--be factual and be honest." And that leads to disaster, as it should in comedy. For about two minutes, Ghostbusters is a great movie, and you wonder (or at least, I wonder) why the other 110 minutes couldn't have done stuff like that.

To be fair, I don't think Ghostbusters II has a scene or a moment that quite tops the Zool confrontation, but it's more consistently amusing. Ramis gets to do a splendid riff on his one toy as a child (part of a Slinky, which he straightened out), and all of a sudden, he's got a character, too--one that has strong (negative) feelings about Venkman (as well as bizarre childhood memories). Aykroyd, meanwhile, gets a certain sad grandeur from really missing his glory days as a ghostbuster. Even Rick Moranis gets to do more than be "annoying guy," and it's kind of cute when he puts on a Ghostbuster suit like a little kid putting on a Superman cape. (Hudson, of course, still doesn't get to do much.) Furthermore, Ghostbusters II has the wonderfully eccentric Peter MacNicol, doing the sort of weird-accent humor that Sasha Baron Cohen currently has a lock on, and he's terrific.

More importantly, Ghostbusters II comes out on top in terms of the other big element that Ghostbusters fans always go on about--New York Attitude. By the end of Ghostbusters, when Winston yells, "I love this town!", you wonder--which town? Oh yeah, I guess it was set in New York. But what does the town have to do with the Ghostbusters' ultimate triumph? Not much connection there--they could have been in mid-town Toronto. And New York Attitude is represented by whom, exactly? By Nashville-born, Kentucky-raised Annie Potts doing a just-good-enough-for-your-college-sketch-show New York accent as the Ghostbusters' secretary? Now, Ghostbusters II, on the other hand--that's an only-in-New York story. Remember the evil goo under the streets of New York, built up by years of New Yorkers' anger and general misery? That's New York attitude, buddy.

To end an essay like this, I of course have to allude to the insidiously catchy theme song. I'm not gonna call those 1984 Ghostbusters. I'm gonna check in with them in 1989, thanks.