Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson are back as the Ghostbusters. This time, the characters played by Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis, Dana Barrett (aka the Gatekeeper) and Louis Tully (aka the Keymaster), are on their side.
Five years after the incident which ended up with Barrett and Tully being possessed by spirits from the beyond, the Ghostbusters are in dire straits. To eke out a living, they end up being entertainment at children's parties. (Incidentally, the kids at a party all shout for He-Man when the Ghostbusters ask "who you gonna call?", but where's the Prince of Eternia now?)
The presence of a river of slime flowing underground through New York City's sewer systems saves the Ghostbusters from a life of eternal boredom. The slime, which reacts to people's thoughts and emotions, represents the emotion of every New Yorker. As you can imagine, nothing good can come out of this.
A ghost from the past named Vigo (Wilhem von Homburg) plans on channelling the slime and using Barrett's son Oscar ("named after a hot dog") to reincarnate himself. The Ghostbusters must stop him before it's too late. With a little help from an animated Statue of Liberty, which is one of the better scenes in the movie, they manage to thwart Vigo's plans.
When I first saw Ghostbusters, the original movie, I was young enough to be actually scared by it. As time went on and I revisted the movie, I realised how great the humour and special effects were, especially for its time. Like with the original, the sequel also has a lot of good one liners. (My favourite one being the mayor's comment that "being miserable and treating other people like dirt is every New Yorker's God given right.")
Ghostbusters 2 moves at a reasonable, and comic, pace until the very end where it loses steam completely. The Ghostbusters defeat Vigo far too easily. But except for that moment, Ghostbusters 2 proves itself to be a worthy sequel.
One more thing: Ray Parker Jr.'s creativity really shines here in the re-use of his classic theme song for Ghostbusters. (That's sarcasm for the record, though the Bobby Brown song is pretty cool.)