Movie Review – Ghostbusters

I grew up watching the late 80s TV show based on Ghostbusters and playing the NES video games.  The guys were heroes to all kids my age, riding around in their cool car and capturing ghosts in bright beams of lasers & lights.  But, oddly enough, I didn’t see the movies until later in life.  I was only 1 when the first film came out, only 6 for the sequel, so I guess it makes sense that I wouldn’t be in the theatre to see them released.  I caught them on TV in pieces, watched them with friends as parties, but never had actually sat down with the VHS or DVD in front of me and soaked in all in the way it was meant to be seen.  Thanks to the 30rd Anniversary of the original, my chance finally came.  I got to watch Ghostbusters on the big screen, see it in all its giant, 80s glory, and enjoy a ridiculous comedy the way it was meant to be enjoyed.

Doctors Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Egon Spangler are paranormal psychologists.  They research the unknown in New York City, dealing with ghosts of all sorts, experimenting in their spare time.  But the university for which they work has just decided to shut them down, not having the budget for such ludicrous investigations.  So the boys decide to go into business on their own, to start the Ghostbusters, a team of “highly trained” experts that will get rid of your ghost problem much like an exterminator kills pests.  But when the city begins to experience an increase in paranormal activity, these Ghostbusters might be in a little over their heads.  It’s up to them to stop the end of the world, apparently, and they’re going to have to get their act together if they want to survive the apocalypse, an event that will come in a form that no one expected, least of all them.

Dan Aykroyd & the late Harold Ramis wrote the script for this wild movie together, initially intending John Candy & Jim Belushi to play parts in the film.  The project ended up going in a different direction than they had first intended, but maybe that’s for the best.  Because Ghostbusters became a cult classic, an incredibly funny & over-the-top comedy that will always be remembered as an 80s gem.  It spawned a whole franchise, which I doubt anyone ever predicted, and is still referenced today.  I was a little nervous going into the theatre to watch it; I wondered how it would play all these years later.  But I needn’t have worried.  It was still entertaining, still clever, still juvenile & adult in turn, still the story that I loved as a kid.  Bill Murray is definitely the star and he pulls it off, as the charming & rowdy Peter.  Dan Aykroyd has never been able to act, but that never stopped him from being a lovable weirdo.  And all the rest of the characters added to a film that is just short of ludicrous, a movie that you can’t help but like, and a plot that will go down in cinema history as having the craziest villain ever invented.