Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures
Directed by Tim Burton
The thing about the current wave of nostalgia-bait movies is that it’s not a new problem for Hollywood. The early 2000s were stuffed to the brim with old TV shows being turned into lousy movies, and even before that were several movies trying to cash in on the Boomers’ wistful memories of their childhood. The main difference today is that the Internet has made the conversation about it inescapable, as we all have an opinion on the relative quality of the latest return of a beloved character. Making a sequel to Beetlejuice feels like a lightning rod for this kind of discourse, and yet I think everyone went into this with a lot more optimism than expected. Perhaps we all have such great memories of the original that we’d like to see the premise given it another go, or maybe we all just want Tim Burton to make a good movie again, and we’re all hoping that giving him some sizable training wheels is what will do the trick. Is this a genuinely fresh take on the material that is comparable to the beloved original, or are we in for a mediocre retread from a director well past his prime? Let’s find out!!
It’s been over thirty years since Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) moved into that house on the hill where she met the Maitlands and had that terrifying run in with the bio-exorcist Beetlejuice/Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) who nearly took her as his bride when she was just a teenager. Things have certainly been up and down for her since then, as you’d expect from seeing someone again after so long, and she’s landed a decent gig as an infinitely more charismatic Zak Bagans; hosting a goofy little supernatural TV series for stay at home parents and Boomers who could afford to retire. Her producer Rory (Justin Theroux) has big plans for her career, but fate throws a wrench in all of that when her father dies in a most deliciously ghastly manner; leaving her stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara) a widow and her estranged daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) without a grandfather on top of losing her father in a bizarre piranha accident. Everyone is brought back to the old Maitland house for the funeral, but being back here isn’t sitting well with Lydia, as she’s been having visions of Beetlejuice/Betelgeuse that seem to only grow stronger the more distressed she becomes. Is the maniacal ghoul up to his old tricks now that Lydia is back in the house and overwhelmed by the grim realities of life? Why did Astrid and Lydia grow so far apart, and can a wacky adventure through the Afterlife them mend the divide? Seriously, can we get a straight answer on how we’re supposed to spell this guy’s name? The guy’s trying to run a business, and you need to have consistency when designing the business cards!
If you wished on a Monkey’s Paw for a sequel to Beetlejuice, well then you must have caught the monkey on a good day because this is about as a good as you could expect from such a scenario. It is frustratingly flawed in ways that are extremely obvious, and yet they perfectly captured the charm of the original film while giving it enough modern twists that it doesn’t feel we’re going through the same motions. Tim Burton’s macabre and wacky sensibilities are stronger here than they’ve been since at least Sweeney Todd, and the movie mines its best nostalgic moments from its production and set design. As fun as it is to see a lot of the old cast return, it’s even more fun to see this kind of filmmaking again with mostly practical effects instead of relying on green screen and CGI. The underworld that we only saw bits and pieces of last time is much more fleshed out, with lots of goofy details and absurd concepts that feel like natural extensions of what we saw in the first film. Still, as great as the props and effects are, it wouldn’t be a Beetlejuice movie without its iconic cast of characters and sharply written dialogue. The obvious standout is Michael Keaton, who hasn’t lost a step in playing this absurd demon, but the biggest joy I got from the cast was seeing Catherine O’Hara nail every scene she was in and getting the biggest laughs in the movie. I haven’t seen Schitt’s Creek, so perhaps it’s not a surprise to everyone else that she’s a comic genius, but it was amazing to see her in this role again and, it’s worth seeing just for her performance. Winona Ryder has perhaps the hardest job in the entire cast and isn’t able to steal the spotlight the way Keaton and O’Hara do, but she’s let down a bit by the script which pulls her in a lot of different directions and makes it difficult to get a proper read on her. To its credit, she does a great job of carrying the weight of three decades on her shoulders, but it’s still a lot to get the audience up to speed with.
The movie’s biggest sin is its inability to focus now that it’s expanded its scope, with Ryder’s character only being the tip of the iceberg. The original had its own non-sequiturs here and there, not the least of which being the title character himself, but the film kept things small enough that it could take goofy tangents without losing track of the core narrative. Like so many genre movies these days, it feels like we’re cramming an entire season of content into too small a package, with the new members to the cast feeling most of the squeeze. Jenna Ortega, Justin Theroux, even Willem Dafoe are okay in their roles but don’t stand out from the original stars; especially Jenna Ortega, who is good but not exactly making the part her own the way Winona Ryder did in the original. The shortest straw, however, was pulled by Monica Bellucci, who ends up being a complete non-sequitur and barely factors into the plot. At best, she’s a looming threat that fails to engender suspense, and at worst she’s a dangling plot thread that feels introduced for no reason and exits the movie with little fanfare. Then again, it’s not like most of the subplots in here get a much better ending as they all get wrapped up far too quickly and there just isn’t enough satisfaction to the conclusion of most of these plot threads.
What’s disappointing is that a lot of the ideas could have worked as their own movies as the premises are interesting and just needed more time to feel like they matter, but the main storyline seems to be where Burton and pals put most of their effort and is where the movie shines brightest. This is where you can draw the starkest comparison to other nostalgia bait revivals like Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. There’s a genuine sense of excitement in returning to these characters and catching up with them after all this time, and while too much of this movie is spent fleshing out the world and expanding the cast, its focus remains on those characters and their arcs rather than the lore and mechanics. Filling out backstories and explaining how things work can be fascinating in their own right, and the movie takes great pains to feel like a natural extension of the original rather than throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, but they’re never as interesting as great characters in a story well told.
Seeing Beetlejuice running a rinky-dink operation in the underworld or seeing where Lydia ended up after all this time are great storylines that have more than enough screen time to make them engaging, especially when the two threads get intertwined, but it’s a shame that everything else feels like the setup to a TV show that we’re just not going to get. I suppose making a movie where you wanted to see even more of it is one of the better problems to have, but it’s a problem nonetheless and left me feeling a little colder towards this than I wanted to. It’s still a heck of a lot of fun, especially whenever Catherine O’Hara is on-screen, but they tried to make up for too much lost time and one movie was simply never going to be enough to make good on three decades of brainstorming. It’s certainly better than most movies that are similarly nostalgia minded, and perhaps that’s the best we could have hoped for. Maybe it’s enough that we got most of the original cast back, that they seem enthusiastic to be here, and the Tim Burton has finally made another movie that isn’t dull or outright terrible. I’d certainly recommend it to anyone who’s a fan of the original movie, but crossing the finish line without falling flat on your face isn’t quite the same as coming in first place.
The Reviewers Unite 