Speed 2 Month Day 25: Didn’t Think I Could do it?

Quarterlies are usually seen as some form of celebratory or focal point. I’m not sure if Speed 2 Month can be seen as a celebration as such, though I’m prepared to call 25 days of dishonoring a massive failure in entertainment and money spending something akin to that. Certainly not a tribute, but possibly Un-tribute.

I had no real plan on what to celebrate today, other than trying to locate a film that would once again show up the defects in SPEED 2, and maybe in the creation process of it as well. I think, after a quick internet brainstorm session with the IMDB (www.imdb.com), I located what I needed to make it one more day of procrastinating the eventual Nic Cage blather.

1989 was a great year in film. Ron Howard had a massive hit with PARENTHOOD, Oliver Stone made waves with BORN ON THE 4^TH OF JULY, Stephen Soderbergh cracked the arthouse market with SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE and Rob Reiner created a whole new focus group with the release of WHEN HARRY MET SALLY. Smaller noteworthy movies were pumped out, some just barely touching the big screen before hitting the burgeoning home video market, like Rutger Hauer in BLIND FURY, Tim Robbins and a few of the Monty Python boys in ERIK THE VIKING and Denzel Washington in THE MIGHTY QUINN, a really cool picture, if you haven’t seen it. On the sequel table came BACK TO THE FUTURE II, STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER, the third in the Indiana Jones series, KARATE KID III, the continuing misadventures of the Griswold family with NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION, the second Fletch movie, the second in the Lethal Weapon series, another Bond movie in LISCENCE TO KILL, the unneeded FOOD OF THE GODS II, and the target of today’s missive, GHOSTBUSTERS II.

It’s pretty clear sequel-itis had hit Hollyweird pretty hard by ’89, and would continue to do so for the next few years. Just looking at other movies released during the year and you see other, smaller hits that begat sequels. GHOSTBUSTERS II was released 5 years after that of the original, gigantic hit. It was apparently pressure from the studio that initiated this sequel. Considering the money to be made from what had already become a merchandising mountain, it’s not hard to see why. The entire main cast returned to reprise their parts, though it was difficult getting some to sign up, memory serves. It is here I wish my magazine collection was digitized to pop in articles of the nature… but you’ll just have to trust me that the malts and barley haven’t damaged the noggin all that much.

Regardless, they all came back to a tale that sees the Ghostbusters far from the heroes they were in ’84, now relegated to making money where they can, such as kiddie birthday parties. Things start picking up quickly as a haunted painting of a 16^th century nutcase begins to push emotion-effecting ectoplasm throughout the city of New York. Lord Vigo (the dead nutcase) wants to return to Earth by commandeering the baby of Dana (Sigourney Weaver), Venkman’s (Bill Murray) love interest from the previous movie. Bang, crash, boom, the Ghostbusters are needed to save the day, and they do, with some spectacularly similar events to the first story. Yawn.

GHOSTBUSTERS was made for 30 million and raked in 291 million back in ’84, one of the biggest hits since the last Star Wars flick then. GHOSTBUSTERS II was made for 37 million, not that big a bump, considering the size of the cast, and made over 215 million. Surprisingly, it was seen as a disappointment monetarily. While it may not have pulled in the same numbers, it’s still pretty damned good, considering the overall costs. I mean, SPEED cost around 30 million and raked in 350 million years later. SPEED 2… well… we know the massive budget jump that stinker got, and the splat it made at the box office. So, while there is no real budget comparison of GHOSTBUSTERS II to SPEED 2, there certainly is in plot.

In GHOSTBUSTERS II, the Ghostbusters must come together to save New York City from danger. Basically the same plot as the first movie, the only difference is what they must overcome to get together. In SPEED 2, the… well, I’ll call them the heroes… must save a cruise ship from smashing into a tanker and blowing up. In SPEED, the heroes must save a busload of passengers from blowing up. Not so much different there, just in the setting and the why of it (and the acting and overall story and the…). The real difference, since GHOSTBUSTERS II isn’t a great film, is in why it’s better than SPEED 2. It’s not a funny movie, like the first one was. It’s not new in what the characters are doing; in fact, there are almost scene-for-scene correlations to the original. The cast is so big you can’t get good representation of them all and actually wish you did. Between the original and II, there was an animated series that became known as THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS (I should tell the tale of that title sometime, it’s interesting). It was a huge hit, creating more merchandising than even the first movie. It did much to develop the four main characters, it seemed as if GHOSTBUSTERS II was either stealing from that show or avoiding parts of it. It was hard to say, unless you were a viewer of the cartoon. If you weren’t, that was not going to help you with this picture. Not helpful, for a sequel of standards that didn’t surpass the original.

GHOSTBUSTERS II is better than SPEED 2, regardless of its own failures. It has the original cast, including secondary characters. It has Harris Yulin, who just knows how to bellow above and beyond many other actors (he played the angry judge). It has real cameos by other actors. It has Harold Ramis, genius. It has Peter MacNichol, who just runs away with the one-liners as the art historian in charge of Lord Vigo’s painting. I’m thinking that if it weren’t for MacNichol, this movie would have never been remembered.

Peter MacNichol. Jason Patric. You decide.