When the bad vibes of a grumpy, grouchy and downright peeved population are turning into a thick sloppy river of ooze flowing beneath the city, and a Carpathian warlord is causing all sorts of problems down the local art gallery, what can you do? More importantly, who ya gonna call?
Five years have past since the Ghostbusters “did a bit of work for the city and got stiffed on the bill” and it shows. Venkman (Bill Murray) is interviewing certifiable nutballs on a dodgy paranormal chat show, Egon (Harold Ramis) has thrown himself into science and, when he's not passing the time doing the kiddies' party circuit with Winston (Ernie Hudson), Ray (Dan Aykroyd) is running a small-time niche book store. Hard times indeed.
But trouble of the spooky sort is a-brewing. Venkman's old flame Dana (Sigourney Weaver), who's now a single mum earning her crust restoring paintings at the Manhattan Museum of Art, has noticed something distinctly strange in her neighbourhood. Before long, a bathtub's tried to swallow her rugrat, her boss (Peter MacNicol, with a superb non-descript East European accent) has been possessed, and that Carpathian bloke (rent-an-Aryan Wilhelm von Homburg) is getting increasingly stroppy down town.
The performances are once again first class, and each situation rife with some wonderful comedy. Particularly memorable is the early courtroom sequence where Murray and his somewhat inexperienced attorney (Rick Moranis, again going off the scale on the geek-o-meter) are in equally hilarious form, before two phantoms appear to reap revenge on the judge who sent them to the electric chair. Suffice to say, our boys are soon back in business.
If there's a main criticism of the movie, it's that it follows an exact template laid down by the original the scientists are down on their luck, go (back) into business, briefly thrive, get stopped in their tracks by a smarmy beaurocrat, the mayor calls for them to save the city, the problem's tracked to a specific building, and a giant figure stomps through the streets. I really miss that marshmallow man though.