Monday at the Movies - September 17, 2012

Welcome to Week Thirty-Five of “Monday at the Movies.”  Having wrapped our look at the “Alien Quadrilogy,” we unintentionally continue profiling the work of Sigourney Weaver this week with a franchise in which I’d honestly forgotten she appeared.  You all know the song; now try to get it out of your head.

Ghostbusters (1984) – First, Ivan Reitman’s comedy classic is not remembered for being a particularly great or innovative movie.  The film frequently compromises its own internal logic, there is a dearth of character development in nearly every face on the screen, and at times the film feels like a huckster trying to sell you a bridge.  What saves the film, though, redeems all those faults and makes Ghostbusters a hit – the infectious camaraderie and earnest enthusiasm of its protagonists.  It must have been a thrill seeing Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson standing side-by-side on the silver screen; added bonuses include Rick Moranis and Sigourney Weaver as unwitting pawns in a supernatural scheme.  The undisputed star is, of course, Murray, whose semi-improvisational style points out the film’s oddities with droll self-confidence (“We came, we saw, we kicked its ass!”), contrasting nicely with Aykroyd and Ramis’s gee-whiz enthusiasm for the premise.  Unfortunately, the script isn’t as tight as Ramis’s would be in the brilliant Groundhog Day a decade later; we don’t quite get a handle on the villain’s big scheme, and the characters are relatively flat.  But Ramis, co-writing with Aykroyd, does know the art of the non sequitur, as in the famous Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man sequence, and it gives the actors and actresses plenty of room to have fun.  This, I think, is the film’s greatest strength; it’s incredibly fun, which prevents the viewer from nitpicking too closely.  If cinema is escapism, Ghostbusters is a top-notch example of that tradition, warts and all.

Ghostbusters II (1989) – In the sequel, the flaws are more apparent, in part because the film opens itself too much to the negative effects on time.  Operating after a real-time gap, Ghostbusters II finds the paranormal exterminators out of a job and out of public favor; if it’s a commentary on box-office demand, it’s a depressing way to begin the film.  In fact, for a comedy, this is a pretty depressing film.  Murray, whose sardonic wit carried most of the first film, seems genuinely bored here, and Aykroyd’s sincerity seems like he’s trying too hard; Ramis doesn’t do much other than serve as a punchline for other characters to imply how creepy he is.  Weaver gets more to do here, presumably as a consequence of her coronation as resident sci-fi queen; her battle to save her son from a reincarnated Carpathian portrait is genuine and compelling, even if the foe isn’t.  The film also gives Moranis a larger role, which is a credit to any movie; his desire to be a “real” Ghostbuster is touching and clever all at once.  The soundtrack, though, is distractingly outdated, even more so than the original film’s ultra-80s theme tune.  I’m feeling surprisingly down on this movie, which catches me off-guard because I loved it so much as a child (I even had the coloring book, of all things).  And it’s not to say that this is a bad movie; it’s probably as intrinsically good as the original.  But what happens in Ghostbusters II is that the cracks show more clearly so that a “just good” movie never quite transcends beyond that level.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week for an exciting new feature in the realm of The Cinema King – stay tuned!