Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a very strange movie. It feels like Tim Burton had a bunch of different sequel ideas since the original premiered 36 years ago. Instead of choosing one, he decided to toss them all together into a single overstuffed production. It plays like a series of loosely connected subplots with beginnings, middles and rushed, anticlimactic, endings. There are a ton of clever visuals (it spends a lot more time in the afterlife), a handful of amusing scenes and it is nice to see Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder in these iconic roles again. While it doesn’t really work, there is something oddly charming about this chaotic, rambling, live-action cartoon. It definitely isn’t boring, though it isn’t exactly coherent, either.
My main complaint about sequels in general is that they tend to be retreads of whatever made their predecessor popular enough to generate a follow-up. With Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (98 minutes, without the end credits) Tim Burton tries all sorts of new things. There are gags and story beats that make a return, yet he doesn’t lean exclusively on callbacks or nostalgia. Beetlejuice’s goals are basically the same, but he’s less threatening and somehow even more cartoonish. The pieces are entertaining, yet this is a case where the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. It is a parade of goofiness without dramatic tension or a consistent narrative. Ultimately, it isn’t quite funny or creative enough to make up for its lack of focus.
Thirty years after her first encounter with the dead, Lydia Deetz returns home with her sullen teenage daughter, Astrid, for her father’s funeral. This leads to a few separate plotlines that sort of, vaguely, interact: 1) Lydia’s self-absorbed doofus boyfriend proposes to her 2) Astrid falls for a sweet, lonely, boy 3) Beetlejuice attempts to reconnect with Lydia while 4) his murderous former lover hunts him down. That doesn’t even take into account Lydia’s stepmom’s pretentious grieving techniques or Willem Dafoe as an actor turned afterlife detective looking for Beetlejuice. Suffice it to say, there is way too much going on here.
Unsurprisingly, the best element of this is Michael Keaton reprising his most famous character. Beetlejuice is just as weird, off-putting and fun as a viewer could hope for. Burton doesn’t make the mistake of overexposing him. He’s still a supporting character, popping in here and there to cause trouble. If he doesn’t feel as dangerous, well, Beetlejuice is kind of beloved now, especially relative to some of the monsters introduced this time. Plus, there’s far too much extraneous material for anything to truly take hold.
The visuals, however, are as delightfully deranged as expected. The afterlife is still a bizarre bureaucracy with grotesque souls wandering about. The casualness of its mundanity when torsos are walking around with blood spurting out of them is funny. The fact that Beetlejuice wreaks as much havoc there as he does above ground highlights the comparisons between the dead and the living. It’s worth a look just to see how Burton blends them.
Beyond that, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is an intermittently enjoyable mess. When Willem Dafoe is in a movie and I can’t help but think “why is his character in this?” every time he’s onscreen, you know there’s a problem. Though Keaton, Ryder and Jenna Ortega (as Astrid) do their best, this is an ungainly beast that cannot be anchored. Sticking to the mother-daughter relationship and dropping in the trickster demon to spice things up may have worked. Burton and screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar tried the kitchen sink approach instead. There is absolutely stuff to like. There is also simply way too much stuff.
2¾ out of 5
Cast:
Winona Ryder as Lydia Deetz
Jenna Ortega as Astrid Deetz
Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice
Catherine O’Hara as Delia Deetz
Justin Theroux as Rory
Willem Dafoe as Wolf Jackson
Monica Bellucci as Delores
Directed by Tim Burton
Screenplay by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar
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