THE LAST TIME I WAS IN this city was when I was twelve years old; in other words, it was a long, long time ago. On my recent trip, I found myself staying at a hotel that was right next to the one I stayed in decades ago. It was the same curved building but now it had two other buildings on its property. Funny how we stayed at the hotel next door because this one was considered too fancy back then. I did make a point of walking over to the other property to see if anything looked familiar to me. The lettering on the sign out front was the same except the lighting had been upgraded to LED lights. When I walked into the hotel lobby, I remembered the wide sweeping staircase that was off to the side; it was there that a family friend snapped a photograph of me dressed in white pants, a nehru shirt and around my neck a strand of puka beads. I am really dating myself here. It is funny, back then people tended to dress up more; or at least that was my perception. Now, as I looked around, both inside and outside, pretty much anything was good to wear from thongs to moo moo dresses to dress slacks to speedos.      AFTER I WAS SETTLED INTO MY hotel room, I decided to take a walk to see if I would recognize anything else. I remembered the main avenue where the major hotels were situated was a bustling place of commerce and activity. Once I got over the bridge, I was in the heart of all the retail establishments. The street looked foreign to me. Where this famous delicatessen sat in the middle of the block, where I had indulged in some incredible meals, was now an ethnic supermarket. Further ahead on the next block, I remembered a candy shop that had this huge gumball machine out in front, that charged a quarter for its jawbreaker candies. Instead, there was a convenience store now, the gumball machine a thing from the past. As I walked block after block, I was surprised how much I remembered from that trip when I was a kid. Being in a warmer climate, the buildings were all light colored and clean, with a row of palm trees in front that stood like sentinels all the way down as far as one could see. The street before me now had a tiredness to it; or better said, it looked exhausted. Some stores were boarded up while others appeared neglected. I found it sad and depressing, which surprisingly was how I felt about the latest installment in this adventure, comedy fantasy.      WHEN AN ANCIENT ARTIFACT IS UNWITTINGLY opened, it releases an evil spirit that was trapped inside for centuries. The Ghostbusters would need all the help they could get to stop the evil spirit from changing the world into an ice kingdom. With Paul Rudd (Ant-Man franchise, Ideal Home) as Gary Grooberson, Carrie Coon (The Post, The Gilded Age) as Callie Spengler, Finn Wolfhard (Hell of a Summer, Stranger Things-TV) as Trevor Spengler, McKenna Grace (Young Sheldon-TV; I, Tonya) as Phoebe Spengler and Kumail Nanjiani (Eternals, The Big Sick) as Nadeem Razmaadi; this latest production was a snoozefest for me. I found myself nodding off even in the theater. The script was packed with so many story lines which cast a somber color over all the activities. There was hardly any humor, and it seemed the writers wanted to make sure the appearances from the previous cast had their fair share and more throughout the picture. I still could not believe there was no excitement, thrills or memorable moments like the original film produced. This will probably come out as a joke, but I am serious, this was an unholy mess.    

1 ½ stars