Ghostbusters – review

What's not to like? Bill Murray at the absolute top of his game, a frenetically catchy theme tune, Dan Aykroyd still operating this side of self-parody, a time-travelling window on grubby early-80s New York that still had the look and feel of an urban war zone. The backstory behind the film is well known: Aykroyd originally wrote it for his pal John Belushi; the latter's death in 1982 meant the role went to Murray, whose acidic improvisational genius was never displayed better. The story? Well, that's bit of an afterthought: Aykroyd, Murray and Harold Ramis are the "parapsychologists" – along with the hapless, miscast Ernie Hudson – who set up a spook-extermination business, and find themselves fending off apocalyptic disaster threatened by an intergalactic deity who – bizarrely – looks like Sheena Easton. But really it's the blizzard of college-humour smut purveyed by Murray – and occasional deadpan-nerd sallies from Ramis – that still make this such a treat, a quarter of a century on.