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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Ghostbusters II (Remastered) (1989)

Ghostbusters II (Remastered) (1989)

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Released 10-Oct-2005

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Comedy Main Menu Audio & Animation
Dolby Digital Trailer
Bonus Episode-Animated Episodes (2)
Rating Rated PG
Year Of Production 1989
Running Time 103:53
RSDL / Flipper Dual Layered Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 2,4,5 Directed By Ivan Reitman
Studio
Distributor

Sony Pictures Home Entertain
Starring Bill Murray
Dan Aykroyd
Sigourney Weaver
Harold Ramis
Rick Moranis
Ernie Hudson
Annie Potts
Peter MacNicol
Harris Yulin
David Margulies
Kurt Fuller
Janet Margolin
Wilhelm von Homburg
Case ?
RPI Box Music Bobby Brown
Randy Edelman
Danny Elfman


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 2.35:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English
French
German
Italian
Spanish
Dutch
Arabic
Bulgarian
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Finnish
Greek
Hebrew
Hindi
Hungarian
Icelandic
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Romanian
Swedish
Turkish
English for the Hearing Impaired
Smoking Yes
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    I'd say a lot of people reading this review will have already seen this movie, so my plot synopsis will be brief.

    Personally, I believe this sequel to the very popular Ghostbusters just did not cut it. To me, the cast really did not have their heart in this movie. I found the plot to be wishy-washy and lacking in overall direction.

    The movie picks up five years after the first Ghostbusters movie. With the Ghostbusters team now almost defunct they are brought back together to solve the mystery of a river of slime far beneath the city of New York. With strange phenomena on the increase in the city they soon find themselves up against an evil entity known as Vigo who needs a child in order to live again. It just so happens that Dana has had a baby in the last 5 years, and this is the one selected by Vigo. Eventually all hell breaks loose with ghosts showing up everywhere - even the Titanic arrives and its ghostly passengers disembark.

     Once again the mayor of New York requests the help of the Ghostbusters and of course after much ado they win out in the end.

Don't wish to see plot synopses in the future? Change your configuration.

Transfer Quality

Video

    This is another excellent remastered transfer from Sony Pictures.

    The video is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The video was sharp and clear with no trace of low level noise. There was good shadow detail and no graininess present. There was some minor aliasing that I noted on Dan Aykroyd's shirt in one scene but that was all I could detect.

    The colours are vibrant and rich with no colour bleeding.

    There was very little in the way of MPEG artefacts, video to film artefacts or film artefacts.

    I only sampled the English subtitles which I found to be accurate to the spoken word.

    The layer change occurs at 66:43, however it is not noticeable.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Unfortunately I found this audio transfer to be of a lower standard than that of the original Ghostbusters movie as per my comments below.

    My choice of audio track to listen to was the English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) track. There are other foreign language tracks available but I did not sample these as I am not conversant in any language except English. However, seeing as the other audio tracks are only Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) tracks the English track is by far the superior one.

    I found the dialogue to be precise and clear. There were no problems with audio sync.

    The musical score for this movie is not a patch on the original Ghostbusters but it still manages to support the video appropriately. It is worth noting that the music production team for this movie was different to the team that created the magic in Ghostbusters.

    I felt that the use of the surround channels lacked somewhat when compared to the remastered Ghostbusters transfer, although the subwoofer was used very nicely.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

Main Menu Audio & Animation

     The main menu shows a cartoon scene of New York City with the selections incorporated into the building structures. It is animated with a figure of the Statue Of Liberty moving down the street and the sky showing clouds moving quite quickly. There are also reddish streaks flying around the buildings. Playing in the background is the Ghostbusters song by Ray Parker Jr.

Dolby Digital Trailer

   This is exactly what it says, a Dolby Digital banner trailer.

Bonus Episode-Animated Episodes

    There are two animated Ghostbuster episodes available to watch, either separately or you can watch them both by selecting Play All at the menu prompt. Selecting Play All will first play the episode entitled "Citizen Ghost" and then "Partners In Slime". To be honest I found neither much to write home about - in fact they were quite lame, but I guess each to their own. Some people may like to watch these but I doubt you would do it more than once. The first episode, "Citizen Ghost", has a run time of 23:47. The second episode, "Partners In Slime" has a run time of 26:29. Both episodes are presented in 4:3 format.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    I have not seen the R1 version of this movie but I believe the PAL format will render a superior transfer over the NTSC version.

    From what I have read the R1 version has the same extras as the R4 version, so going on this I feel the R4 version will be the best version.

Summary

    Even though this movie still has a lot of good special effects and the likes of Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd keeping the humour alive, it pales in comparison to the original Ghostbusters movie.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Paul Svensen (So you have nothing else to do but to read my bio)
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Review Equipment
DVDMomitsu V880DX upscaling player, Samsung DVD-HD747 player, Pioneer DV-535 player, Toshiba D-R1-S-TG , using DVI output
DisplayPanasonic PT-AE700 WXGA LCD Projector, 102" 16:9 Grandview motorised screen, Panasonic TH-42PV500A HD Plasma Display, Toshiba 83 cm 4:3 CRT. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 720p.
Audio DecoderDenon AVR-2802. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials.
AmplificationDenon AVR-2802 Dolby EX/DTS ES Discrete plus Sansui two channel amplifier driving Back Surrounds
Speakers Fronts, Centre, and Back Surrounds - Accusound Ref 8 speakers with 150W RMS accusound sub woofer, Surrounds - Sony

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