BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE (2024)
Updated: Oct 3
It's Showtime. Again.
Grade: B-
By now, Tim Buron’s long-awaited follow-up to his 1988 breakthrough Beetlejuice has made bank, once again proving the profitability of legacy sequels. There have certainly been several such movies that justify their existence, such as Blade Runner 2049 (2018) and Top Gun: Maverick (2022). Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, on the other hand, never quite rises to the same heights as those flicks. Although it does avoid the common trap of being a retread of the first movie, as well as the unforgivable crime of giving Michael Keaton’s sleazy bio-exorcist a redemptive character arc, it is simply too uneven and too needlessly complicated for its own good. Nevertheless, there are several elements-particularly the performances and the side-splitting climax-that make it difficult to outright dismiss.
Set some thirty years after the original, the movie follows Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder), who is now the host of a ghost-based TV show and is estranged from her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) in the wake of her husband’s death. Lydia is haunted by memories of Betelgeuse (Keaton), the ghost who tried to marry her at the end of the first movie. After Lydia’s father Charles is eaten by a shark, Lydia, Astrid, and stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara) return to the town of Winter River for his funeral. But when Astrid falls into a supernatural trap, Lydia must summon Betelgeuse again to help get her back. Meanwhile, Betelgeuse’s wife Delores (Monica Belucci), who killed and was killed by Beet during the Black Plague, is on the prowl….
The plot of the first Beetlejuice was fairly straightforward-a deceased couple wants to get an obnoxious family out of their house and summon Betelgeuse, only to find themselves in over their heads. In Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, we have Delores’s vengeful rampage coupled with Astrid’s predicament. Either one of these stories would have made for an interesting movie, but the screenwriters seemed determined to put them both together, however haphazardly. And it really is haphazard, as we also have a ghostly movie star-turned-detective (Willem Dafoe), Lydia’s manager boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux), who wants to marry her rather suddenly, and Delia’s unfortunate encounter with a pair of Egyptian asps. There are just so many things going on, and not all of it is necessary.
Even the tone is very scattershot. The scenes set in the afterlife are funny and delightfully macabre, such as a moment where Delores literally staples herself back together before using her evil powers to deflate a ghostly janitor (Danny DeVito). But back in the world of the living, it suddenly gets serious as Lydia struggles to make amends with Astrid, who believes her mother to be a fraud. When Betelgeuse has his first encounter with Lydia and Rory, the resulting special effects are quite disgusting (props to director Burton for refusing to tone things down), but it doesn’t quite gel with most of the movie (or the first movie, for that matter).
Despite all this, the movie upholds its entertainment value thanks to the humor and performances. Ryder successfully transfers the “concerned mother” persona she adopted in Stranger Things to her classic goth character as she sets out to rescue her daughter from being taken aboard the Soul Train (a rather hilarious in-joke) to the Great Beyond. Astrid is the typical teenage character who doesn’t feel like she’s understood by her family, but Newcomer Ortega plays it quite well. And Keaton, despite his advanced age, is still excellent as Betelgeuse.
The climax of lets itself go in a sequence that had this reviewer laughing in the theater. Betelgeuse again tries to marry Lydia and forces her and the guests to sing and dance to Richard Harris’s “MacArthur’s Park” while the detective and several ghost cops close in. Had this climax come at a more focused movie, the rating for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice would be much higher. As is, despite its pluses, the tone and story problems keep it from being essential viewing, but it is still worth checking out.
Director: Tim Burton
Screenplay: Alfred Gough, Miles Milar (Based on characters created by Michael McDowell and Larry Wilson)
Producers: Marc Toberoff, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Tommy Harper, Tim Burton
Cast: Michael Keaton (Betelgeuse), Winona Ryder (Lydia Deetz), Catherine O'Hara (Delia Deetz), Jenna Ortega (Astrid Deetz), Justin Theroux (Rory), Monica Belucci (Delores), Willem Dafoe (Wolf Jackson), Arthur Conti (Jeremy Frazier), Santiago Cabera (Richard), Burn Gorman (Father Damien), Amy Nuttal (Jane Butterfield, Jr.), Danny DeVito (Janitor)
Rated: PG-13 (violent content, bloody images, strong language, drug use and suggestive material)
Comments