REWIND REVIEW: Ghostbusters (1984)

(PG) ★★★★★

Director: Ivan Reitman.

Cast: Bill Murray, Sigourney Weaver, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, Walter Atherton.

The garbagemen had arrived, and they were very unhappy with the mess.

Sci-fi cinema has been a thing for as long as cinema has been a things. Since Georges Méliès' 1902 short Trip To The Moon (and actually even before then), film-makers have been fascinated by showing us the impossible and improbable place where science meets fiction.

2001: A Space Odyssey brought about a new dawn of sci-fi in 1968, but it was arguably Star Wars that really sparked a revolution. Even though 2001's special effects hold up better, Star Wars created a new level of FX artistry while simultaneously cementing the blockbuster era that began just two years earlier with Jaws. Big, incredible effects, matched with symphonic sci-fi storytelling - these are the ingredients that audiences look to today when they hit the cinemas in droves. It's rarely the auteur-driven drama or star vehicle, as it was when The Godfather or Rocky or The Graduate dominated the box office.

Between 1977 and 1984, the three original Star Wars films were the biggest box office hits of their respective years, as were the Bond-goes-sci-fi-actioner Moonraker, and Steven Spielberg's boy-meets-alien charmer E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. The only non-sci-fi chart-toppers in that time were Grease and Raiders Of The Lost Ark. This pent-up passion for sci-fi meant it was only a matter of time before someone decided to throw a big FX budget at a comedy.

Enter Ghostbusters. Based on an idea by fourth-generation paranormal enthusiast Dan Aykroyd, it was knocked into shape by director Ivan Reitman and writer/actor Harold Ramis. It was Reitman and Ramis who reined in Aykroyd's initially intergalactic/futuristic idea which "would have cost something like $200 million to make", Reitman told Premiere magazine in 2014 - those kinds of budgets wouldn't set sail until James Cameron got on board the Titanic in 1997.

In fact, Aykroyd's ability to throw out a lot of his early "darker", "scarier", "intergalactic" ideas and take on Reitman and Ramis' concepts not only made the film what it is, but says a lot about Aykroyd's creative skills as a collaborator. Reitman even praised Aykroyd's openness - lesser writers would've been less receptive, and Ghostbusters would never have been made, let alone become a classic.

Reitman and Ramis gave the film its "ghost janitors in New York" feel, but fate gave them their cast. Aykroyd had written the script with two former Saturday Night Live co-stars in mind, but Beverly Hills Cop took Eddie Murphy out of the equation and a mix of heroin and cocaine did the same for John Belushi. Instead Ramis and another ex-SNL-er Bill Murray became the stars, with Ernie Hudson taking on Murphy's significantly pared-down role.

The premise is king in Ghostbusters - it's great trick is making its paranormal subject matter normal. It's heroes are work-a-day service providers, like ratcatchers and garbagemen - they wear overalls, inhabit a fire station and drive an ambulance/hearse. It somehow helps make the whole unbelievable scenario believable.

But it's the cast that makes it work, particularly Murray. While his sleaziness has aged poorly (though it's interesting to note how his character's attitude to Sigourney Weaver's Dana changes and becomes caring when she becomes possessed, arguably showing his true colours), his motormouth improvisations are still on the money. His big personality elevates the Ghostbusting team, and thus the movie, especially alongside the goofy charm of Aykroyd's enthusiastic Ray Zantz and Ramis' nerdish Egon Spengler, who are both incredibly subdued. Hudson is unfortunately saddled with a role so underwritten, you could almost cut him from the film without it hurting the finished product - it's only that a gets off a couple of good one-liners and brings a biblical perspective that he has an impact.

Outside of Murray, the secret casting weapons are Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis. The pair play their duel roles in a brilliantly complimentary way that isn't spoken about enough. Weaver's Dana is wary, aloof and sharp - she's a grounding force in the movie - while Moranis' Louis is an annoying dweeb who's there for comic relief. Yet when both become possessed, they each take on animal qualities in their own way that work together perfectly. Dana is like a dog in heat, while Louis is a monkey, sniffing and testing things to see what they are. Each interpretation of possession works, and the film is all the better for it.

More than 40 years on from becoming the first big-budget comedy, Ghostbusters continues to sparkle because it remains funny and its premise still works. There are so many great lines - Murray's delivery of "Yes, it's true. This man has no dick" is one of the greatest pieces of comedy of the 20th century - and its laugh ratio is high, while many of its sci-fi FX hold up surprisingly well today. The stop-motion hellhounds of Zuul aren't great, but there is a composite shot with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man lurching down a New York street that is immaculate to this day.

Seriously, this shot is great.

FX-driven comedy begins here and is yet to be surpassed. The following year's Back To The Future is another sci-fi laugher that probably owes a debt to Ghostbusters, but it didn't cost as much. Back To The Future 2 pushed that envelope a few years later, but arguably it would take 13 years and Men In Black to even come close to this level of big-budget blending between comedy and science-fiction.