I Just Saw

I just saw Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and really enjoyed it. The plot is a little busy and overcomplicated, but it’s delivered at such a level of whimsy and love of tongue-in-cheek macabre storytelling that it works, from a scene of a dismembered succubus nail-gunning herself together while “Tragedy” plays, to a literal soul train and a nightmarish birth sequence. (I’d be interested to know why this was rated 12A. It seems like 20 years ago it would have been a straight 15.)

Plots in Tim Burton films tend to be more whimsical than fully coherent, dependant on themes and styles and images culled from a number of sources in pop culture including old genre works, animation, comic books, cartoons, and television. This is as opposed to the heavily structured, three act, Save the Cat-style screenplays that predominate now and seem to aim for a facile sort of pseudo-realism, aiming to provide the most standardised bland experience for fanboys. The type of person who sees something they don’t understand in a movie and reacts with childish aggression, assuming that it must be a mistake if it isn’t tailor made for the dullest viewer.

Burton’s worst films tend to be those which are based on traditional screenplays, like Disney’s live-action remakes of Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Dumbo (2019), the latter of which almost made him retire due to studio interference. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice feels like a return to the artistic impulses of the original Beetlejuice (1988), and while it’s inevitably not as fresh as that film it’s packed with so many fun ideas, twists, and turns that it earns the right to be a sequel.

One thing I did find amusing is the plot conceit that Mr Deetz, Winona Ryder’s character’s dad who was played by Jeffrey Jones in the original, is killed off here and his death depicted in the film’s only fully animated sequence, while his corpse in the afterlife conveniently appears without a head while another actor takes the vocal reins. These choices are clearly the result of the still-living Jones having become a registered sex offender in 2003. While Mr Deetz’s death provides the motivation for his wife (a returning Catherine O’Hara) and daughter to go back to the haunted house, it might have been wiser to just discreetly write him out as having died years prior.

Jenny Ortega plays Lydia Deetz’s (Ryder) daughter, borderline estranged from her mother due to the latter’s inability to contact her dead father despite presenting a ghost hunting show. They return to the house whose attic is a gateway to Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), the “bio-exorcist” demon who in this film is on the run from Delores (Monica Bellucci), his ex-wife referenced in the first film. His relation of their backstory is possibly my favourite sequence in the piece, an extended audiovisual reference to black-and-white, European movies in the horror and art house genres.

The plot is so dense with strands and characters that it’s pointless to try to summarise it. I’ll just note that Paul Theroux and Willem Defoe also have prominent roles, as Deetz’s insufferable slimebag beau and an action star turned purgatorial detective, respectively. Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin are slightly conspicuous by their absence given they played the original film’s main characters, but not hugely. And obviously you can’t cast Baldwin right now. (This is the problem with sequelising a Hollywood film 35 years later. That’s a lot of time for members of your cast to sexually offend or shoot someone in.)

As for me, I might even catch Beetlejuice Beetlejuice again in cinemas, and I almost never do that. It’s not perfect. The final sequence with Jimmy Webb/Donna Summer’s “MacArthur Park” (“someone left the cake out in the rain”) goes on too long and Jenna Ortega’s character comes close to fitting that annoying know-it-all teen girl stereotype, made for “I’m not like the other girls” girls. (“She’s read Crime & Punishment three times and thinks everything’s lame, she’s SO like me! I mean, I’VE not read C&P three times, but, you know…”)

She’s nothing like as bad as the stereotype has been in other films, though. (I spent 2023’s Barbie wanting someone to take away the main child character’s phone until she learned some bloody manners.) And the character dynamics are genuinely quite sweet in the final account. I particularly like what Burton does with O’Hara’s stepmother character, who’s silly and vain but also a loving and confident woman. Ryder is good as Lydia, vulnerable yet charismatic, a fair approximation of who her original character would be as an adult.

And, of course, Michael Keaton is magnificent as Beetlejuice, as if 35 years haven’t passed. This is a triumphant sequel, adding detail and new ideas to its predecessor while remaining funny, fun, and engaging.

Rating: 3/4