I was supposed to go to Iroquois Amphitheater for a free screening of The Muppets Take Manhattan but it was pretty stormy throughout the night so my friend and I elected to do an in-home movie night. She had never seen Ghostbusters until we saw it at Iroquois in June. We decided that the right Plan B was for her to finish off the Ghostbusters duology.

There is a palpable sense that Ghosbusters II was made because Sony wanted another blockbuster and the guys agreed to do it as long as they could make the movie for themselves. In the end, both sides got their way...and neither side really got what they wanted.

It's easy to imagine the cast and crew busting a gut at a lot of the different scenes in Ghostbusters II. Bill Murray almost feels like he's crashed their movie shoot and hijacked the camera just for the fun of it. His manic energy drives the movie and it's difficult to resist laughing at a lot of his quips (though I could have done without the xenophobic "You'll never get a green card with that attitude"). The camaraderie is the real appeal of this film and that stuff is enjoyable.

Where Ghostbusters II gets into trouble is really not until its final act. There's a sense of trying too hard to be an action movie blockbuster, plus the antagonism with the mayor's aid (Kurt Fuller) just feels like a generic rehash of what we saw in the first film between the boys and the EPA. Vigo isn't a particularly interesting character, though I have to say they did a great job with having him operate through the painting.

My friend laughed several times at the movie because she made the connection that Ghostbusters II was the basis for Luigi's Mansion. I've never played that game, but her description was enough to convince me that I really should play it at some point if only so that I can bask in the absurdity of a video game starring Luigi based on Ghostbusters II.

Ghostbusters II has a lousy reputation. I can't say that it's entirely undeserved - a lot of it is lazy or forced, etc. - but I do think it's more enjoyable than many have admitted. It set out to make me laugh and it accomplished that. In my world, that's a win.

Ghostbusters II was re-ranked on my Flickchart to #712/1517