I didn’t grow up with Beetlejuice, but I wish I did – I was missing out! I remember the character walking around Warner Bros. Movie World when I was 10, but I only wanted my picture taken with the Looney Tunes and Austin Powers 🤓 Anyway, remarking on Beetlejuice, there might actually be room for improvement, particularly in character depth, if this sequel just wants to be a common retread of what we’ve seen before. But let’s hope for something more. This is a universe and initial premise that lends itself to a many number of directions, as it were. I think with a Beetlejuice movie, the dialogue has to be distinct and zippy, and the fact that Tim Burton is on board again to direct, gives me hope that he might have the best ideas as to how to extend his baby. I wonder if updated graphics will make Beetlejuice Beetlejuice feel fresh for the 20th Century, or pale in comparison to the nostalgic charm of practical effects, and that’s the main component I’ll be looking at 🧐
Ladies and gentlemen, Charles Deetz is dead! He’s left behind Delia (Catherine O’Hara) for the afterlife, and Lydia (Winona Ryder) rushes from her life as a hoaxy supernatural TV talent to be with her stepmother, picking up her distant daughter Asterid (Jenna Ortega) along the way, as they return to the beloved Winter River house for the art-installation burial. Lydia has been having quick visions of Betelgeuse (Micheal Keaton), who has been trying to get her attention again ever since his ex-wife, Delores (Monica Bellucci), a fearsome soul sucker, has returned for revenge against her once beloved bio-exorcist. Meanwhile, Asterid meets a cute boy named Jeremy (Arthur Conti), but penetrating forces connecting Asterid to the afterworld will put her in danger 😮
Well, the updated graphics are amazing – I overlooked how far CGI animation has come in looking like anything, including stop-animation, so the sandworms in particular are able to be modern, while still retaining their stilted charm. Fantastic 👍 And I also must pay credence to Danny Elfman, for when that Beetlejuice score starts bouncing through the opening credits like yesteryear, it’s hard not to be enthusiastic and bop along 🤗 But now, I’ll be honest, and I really hated this movie, so if you’ve come here for glowing kind words, then you’re going to find a rude awakening. The first third of this movie is an absolute mess, going every which way for about five or so different plot threads, and only held together by the best one-liners of the movie, coming from Ms. Delia Deetz. For years, I might’ve merely known Catherine O’Hara as “the Mum from Home Alone” but after Schitt’s Creek, and the few more appearances to follow, I’m really loving the O’Hara renaissance, and for me, spending another round with Delia is easily the best component of this movie. Although, conversely, I was truly numb to Willem Dafoe’s character, and Monica Bellucci’s Dolores certainly looks the part, but is relatively inconsequential, stalking the movie, and I often forgot she was even on the prowl. Ask me again in five minutes, and I may’ve forgotten those two were even in the picture. Sadly, next, the movie only affirms to me that I like Jenna Ortega, especially when she dances, but beyond that, I’m struggling to pinpoint why. The Wednesday TV show may’ve been a different beast to the ‘Addams Family movies of the nineties, but Ortega proved there that she’s not as charismatic as Christina Ricci; and in this movie, she cannot pertain to the sass Queen that Winona Ryder once epitomized back in the day. This movie is bright to only give her some edgy lines at the start, and then she’s really only playing her experiences straight; but it was rough for a while, before becoming mild. I think Ortega is a smart young lady, and has an energetic aura around her, but I couldn’t put her on a pedestal anywhere near some of the other young actresses of the past, or present day, like Florence Pugh and Saoirse Ronan, at least not yet.
Rory (Justin Theroux) started out by spewing that flatpack pseudoscience nonsense passed off as wit that Wednesday had once an episode, until I ended up warming quickly to what the movie was doing with him. But it seems like all of Tim Burton’s work now has to come with that sting in the tail, once and a while going too far off the deep end to appeal to sleep-inducing wokeness. Which then makes me question the depiction of the “soul train” – isn’t that a tired and stereotypical view of black culture that’s played out by now? I don’t get. Anyway, I start to wonder which one of us (me or Tim) hasn’t thought our ideas all the way through, regarding stuff like that, but then when this movie also contains crude storytelling modes, like how Jeremy and his parents are quite obviously ghosts from the moment we meet them, I don’t think it’s me – Jeremy and his parents as a not-so-secret movie reveal may work if this movie is meant for kids, you may argue, but surely not if the movie is also meant for fans of the original as well 💁♂️ Yet perhaps I just see too many movies, so I’m not easily fooled like some; but even Jeremy’s turn as adversary is over in a sudden, and his menace is surely one component of this movie that can’t merit discussion on the car ride home.
But I offer solutions to my displeasure. Because when Asterid pulls the sheet off the miniature town set, it sparked an idea that Asterid really should’ve been taken out of school by just her grandmother, so we could’ve had the pair bond separately for a while before Lydia makes the scene. Because we really haven’t discussed the biggest disappointment of this movie yet, and that’s the characterisation of Lydia. What is this movie doing to dear Lydia? She is miserable, a horrible wreck of a person, where the first movie was all about her finding her inner happiness after a depressive beginning. In this movie, we are just meant to accept that the Lydia we knew is just gone, and why? Is it because her husband died? Or because dealing with ghosts all the time is wearying? Genuinely asking. I’m not necessarily knocking those motivations, but the movie gives no time to depth, to explain her insecure folly. What if instead, Lydia is unreachable and doesn’t get the call until later that her father has died, because she’s off exploring deep corners of the globe offscreen, helping the unliving and expanding her abilities? What if she’s a success, and the first time Lydia and Asterid reunite is in that attic, after Asterid finds the pamphlet for Betelgeuse? This change means we may not get the same sordid introduction to Rory as we do, but we can work around that at and after the funeral; but we also don’t get Lydia’s flailing TV show that ultimately goes nowhere. I really did like the scene in the farmhouse’s doorway, where Lydia and Delia have a quiet moment to discuss how far they’ve come, but throughout that scene, and also the entire first half of the movie, it’s like the dialogue is playing catchup to explain what’s being going on to get us where we are at today. And in that vein, I’d suggest simplifying what’s been happening to make it clearer, or don’t show so much unnecessity initially.
And then, in my world, the first time we see Betelgeuse might be when Lydia and Rory first get sucked into the miniature model – that is truly the first scene where the ‘geuse pops, in my opinion, and it’s perhaps his fourth! You have to remember that Betelgeuse was an additional sprinkle in the original anyway, a minor exuberance in a sturdier story – maybe less is best with Betelgeuse, and it’s not like he doesn’t have enough to do once the… “main plot” (if you could call it that) takes place, rescuing Asterid, helping Delia, and marrying Lydia. (I would then also move the Dolores reanimation and backstory portion to a scene where Betelgeuse is catching up Lydia on his life, later on). But I get it, the movie wants Micheal Keaton and Winona Ryder to be the main players of this movie, since it was their work that makes the original so memorable. But if that’s the case, I also think that this production shows how this movie needed to come out 10 years ago, and it’s evident from how old both actors look from their first scenes. Can you just imagine how much feistier this may’ve been on the heels of the Paranormal Activity boom, and closely following on from Keaton’s rejuvenation in Birdman? Even still, with so many years passing, and really no rush to produce a sequel, how does this story have less direction than a wonky trolley? And what’s with Lydia wearing the same damn clothes she wore as a teenager? 😤
For me, I’m fine with Charles being absent, and the house’s former ghosts being explained away. I don’t mind this being the story of three generations of Deetz women, so why have the character of Charles in it at all, walking around without a head, doing nothing, until the very end when he is united with Delia, to get on the soul train? That final scene would’ve been enough. And yeah, not only is this story all over the place, but there’s a clash of styles – the animation of Charles’ death, the black-and-white flashbacks in another language, the sand worms that pop in and pop out before saving the day at the very end. Perhaps this movie is meant to be a patchwork quilt, and people are enjoying its wading existence 🤷♂️ And don’t get me wrong, Tim Burton has etched a career out of being controlled whilst appearing to throw everything against the wall – that’s how I would explain the success of Beetlejuice, and Edward Scissorhands; movies that couldn’t have appeared much on paper, but which Burton’s deft hand and creativity made them cult classics. But if Burton is trusting his instincts again in the same way, then it certainly didn’t work for me, and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a complete clusterfuck at all angles.
So, did I really just come out of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice feeling like I could structure a movie better than Tim Burton? Is that what I think I’m saying? 😮 Yep, it’s a crazy world we’re living in, in 2024. Because Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is so disappointing, that it’s one of those movies where I can’t believe I paid to see it. If my local cinema had a kiosk where people could beg for their money back, then I’d be there. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is terribly uneven, it’s dreadful – and not in a gothic way Tim Burton may’ve intended. Considering Delia was duped by those vicious and venomous snakes, the only thing fangless about Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is Beetlejuice Beetlejuice 😏 Here I go saying “Beetlejuice” so many times that it’s lost all meaning! 😱 By the by, it’s actually been a pretty horrible year for movies on the whole for 2024. But we’re truly expecting an onslaught of titles to drop over the rest of the year – Joker: Folie á Deux, Smile 2, Moana 2, Gladiator 2, Venom: The Last Dance, Mufasa: The Lion King, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 – so if you like a good sequel, there’s still time to turn it around. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is not the starting point. 1.0
P.S. If I had a dollar for every time Tim Burton senselessly killed a fella named Bob, I’ve have at least two dollars 😄
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