Ghostbusters

"Ghostbusters" is a fun movie and not much more, worth maybe a handful of chuckles but not much else. It stars Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, and "Groundhog Day" director Harold Ramis as three professors of the supernatural who are kicked out of a generic university because they are "no longer needed." Immediately after they hit the streets, they start the business that is the namesake for the title, offering extermination of ghosts and other paranormal beasts. They have no customers at first, but after solving a hotel mishap and claiming 5 grand and going through a musical montage featuring famous magazine covers for effect, they are national celebrities and crowd-pleasers. While also dealing with exorcisms with Venkman's (Murray) girlfriend (Sigorney Weaver) and her nerdy neighbor (Rick Moranis), they are also dealing with a determined EPA official (William Atherton) and Gozer (Slavitza Jovan), who comes off looking more like David Bowie than the she-devil type the movie is aiming for (according to the descriptions). Anyways, the official finally gets into their top secret storage area and takes off the protection grid, which releases all of the spirits and pretty much reeks havoc on New York City, as if enough hasn't already been disorganized and screwed up. In the climax, the three old Ghostbusters and one new one (Ernie Hudson) face off with the devil thingy and are just about to catch when a particle change goes wrong and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man appears, and well... more havoc and people running around. Ultimately, the outcome is good, and the Ghostbusters are welcomed with open arms to the pretty much oblivious citizens who have just seen their city ripped apart and don't seem to care at all. Anyways, now to the technicalities. No one, except for maybe Moranis, is at his (or her) comic best. Also, I found that Ackroyd's mostly inept buster was the butt of too many jokes and it got too one-note after a while. Plus, Weaver's role as the girlfriend was underwritten by screenwriters Ackroyd and Ramis, and although she was in the film a lot, she was possessed and her dialogue went into the gutter. Moranis was very funny, but the punchline about him being locked out of his room was also relentless and lost it's comical value after, oh, the eleventh time. Bottom line: as you can deduce, this "classic" didn't possess me. B-