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[Image] (1989) ****

Five years after the events of the first Ghostbusters film, the four original ghostbusters are in the doldrums. Ray and Winston perform at kids' birthday parties during the day, and Ray operates an occult bookstore in the evenings. Peter Venkmann now hosts a cable access show, "World of the Psychics". Egon at least is back at Columbia conducting experiments that annoy couples needing marriage counseling.

When Dana (Sigourney Weaver), seeks Egon's help, it leads to the three original ghostbusters accidentally causing a blackout in Manhattan. This lands them in court where it looks like they will all end up on Riker's Island, until a ghost outbreak and subsequent elimination by the Ghostbusters convinces the judge to dismiss the charges, and the Ghostbusters are back in business!

For many years I thought that this sequel was one of those films that is basically a remake of the original, but on second viewing, there really is a lot of character development and evolution from the original. The jokes don't come as freely as in the original, but they arrive nonetheless. The statue of liberty at the end is a poor paean to the sta-puft marshmallow man from the original, but they get points for effort.
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Supposedly, a Ghostbusters three is in development, with the writing team from the Office penning the script. I'm predicting an Indiana Jones 4 scenario here - a lot of excitement for the sequel, resulting in a film that deviates too widely from its predecessors, and thus generally makes for a poor film. Having said that, I'll still go see it, and just hope for the best.