I must admit that I have never actually attempted to Bust a Ghost in my life (although the idea still appeals) but Ray Parker's lyric seemed a good post title.
2009 is the 25th anniversary of 'Ghost Busters', so, on Hallowe'en, I thought it high time to revisit one of my cinematic childhood favourites for the first time since...my childhood, probably. I really can't remember the last time I watched either of the two GB films, although I remember watching 'Ghost Busters II' at the cinema with my Dad, despite not having seen the first film beforehand. Through school friends, I had become an avid fan of the late-80's cartoon version, 'The Real Ghostbusters' and had only been two - too young for the cinema (to my parents, anyway) - when the original film was released, so that was my excuse. I think the first time I saw it was at some summer kids' club on VHS in the early '90's. By the time GB II came out, I was the envy of my classmates due to the fact that I had collected all of the TV show toys, including, my favourite, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, who, to my dismay, was actually a villain in the first film and ended up splattered all over NYC. Well, he had been my childhood friend, anyway. The second film's villain, Vigo, was so scary, he gave me troubled sleep and so forfeited any right to my friendship.
Re-watching one of your youthful favourites at least 15 years on is a tricky prospect; the innocence and naivete of youth now replaced by the bitterness, regret and vagaries of adult life. OK, well maybe just the advancing years for me. Obviously, Ghost Busters is a kid's film and not really aimed at men in their late twenties, but it's good to get a little nostalgic from time to time, I think. Plus, films you enjoyed when you were younger can have a different appeal when you watch them as an adult. I recently re-watched 'Short Circuit' on TV and enjoyed the humour more than I did as a kid. The original 'Star Wars' and 'Indiana Jones' films also still hold up really well, more so than their recent sequels, for sure.
I did enjoy watching 'Ghost Busters' again but found it underwhelming and just not as funny as it thinks it is. Yes, it's a 25 year old comedy but if other '80's comedies like 'Short Circuit', with the slightly less comedically talented Steve Guttenburg and Ally Sheedy, can still amuse, how can 'Ghost Busters' fail to do so, especially with this cast? Bill Murray (second from left, above) brought his now well-known laid back, Devil-may-care shtick to the starring role of Dr. Peter Venkman, who now just irks rather than amuses. He has most of the best lines (e.g. "This city is heading for a disaster of Biblical proportions...human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!") but I prefer Dan Ackroyd's (top second right) loveably nerdy, less jaded Ray Stanz or Harold Ramis' straight-laced and smart Egon Spengler (top left). I'm only really saying that because I always had to be Egon when we played Ghost Busters at school. He was seen as the quiet, wimpy one who took a back seat to the more popular and heroic Venkman, usually played by Barney Wills. Git. (Maybe I am bitter and regretful?) I've learnt to love Egon over the years, he's cool because, apart from inventing all the GB's equipment, the actor portraying him co-wrote the script and came up with the fantastic character names such as 'Ivo Shandor' and Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson - top right), who should also have had more screen time. If I actually had been Spengler/Ramis in the 1980's, I would have seen to that. That said, we didn't really care who wrote the script when we were in Primary School.
...fair enough, that's a very recent picture of me and I look more like the films' Egon now than I did at Primary School, when I didn't even wear glasses! I did have more hair, though :(
Anyway, back to the film. I failed to appreciate the humour as a kid, when, really, the main appeal of the film for me was watching the GB's use their cool gear to trap those nasty ghoulies and imagine myself doing the same thing. The toy line from the TV show allowed one to do this with the figures but I never got a proton pack or ghost trap for X-mas, unfortunately. I dunno, maybe I took it all too seriously and that's why I got saddled playing Egon. When I was 10, I just saw Stay-Puft as a villain and didn't get the joke that he, a beloved character from Stantz's childhood, became the film's ultimate, Godzilla-like manifestation of evil and destruction. Watching as an adult, the humour often seems too adult for a kids film, such as the sexual innuendoes between Venkman and Dana (Sigourney Weaver). The Stay-Puft gag is probably the most child-friendly joke in the whole film. As a whole. though, most of the humour falls a bit flat. "That's a big twinky" isn't as zingy a punchline as it's intended to be.
The special effects have dated pretty badly since the dawn of the CGI era, especially the stop-motion Terror Dogs, but at least they don't overwhelm the film and the scene where all the ghosts previously busted by our heroes are released across NYC still looks cool, as does a lot of the production design, e.g. the Ectomobile and the rest of the GB's gear. The same can't be said of the film's main villain, Gozer, who, for all the paranormal manifestations building the tension prior to her appearance, disappoints by looking like a reject from Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video. Still, she redeems herself by creating Stay-Puft.
No comments:
Post a Comment