beetlejuice beetlejuice

It could have been so much worse. 

That may not seem like much of an endorsement, but the extent to which Tim Burton’s fastball has deserted him in the 21st century is so acute that the mere thought of him attempting to mount a legacy sequel to one of his certified, early-career bangers is enough to make one’s hair stand on end. Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure remains Burton’s most entertaining film, Ed Wood his most accomplished, and Edward Scissorhands his most personal… and yet it’s his ghoulish 1988 oddity Beetlejuice that stands as arguably his most weirdly beloved - and quintessentially Burton-esque. Thirty-six years later, the film remains a joyously relentless hoot - and a refreshing reminder of a time when special effects had actual personality, utilized in service of a director’s visual style. Michael Keaton’s performance as the titular agent of chaos is a hand grenade of comedic energy, but the entire cast works in perfect concert with one another. The pacing over a mere 92 minutes is sublime. The movie really does feel like a minor miracle of sorts - one that would scarcely seem possible today.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is, to put it bluntly, a bit of an unholy mess - it feels as if three or four different sequel concepts that had been developed over the ensuing decades were simply mashed together into a single overstuffed shooting script. But the film wrings a lot of residual affection from its returning characters, and sees Burton at least occupying the general ballpark of his early glory days (even if he remains stationed along the outfield warning track). The opening credits attempt to evoke the original - from the town model to a retooled version of Danny Elfman’s iconic theme - but the nostalgia is tempered by how keenly one senses they’re watching a facsimile - an inferior imitation. Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) has grown up to host a cheesy supernatural TV show called Ghost House, is estranged from her teenage daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega, all withering scowls and eye-rolls), and feels deeply ambivalent about her simpering boyfriend/producer Rory (Justin Theroux) (for all her goth moroseness, Lydia was arguably the most grounded and relatable character in the original - it’s a little disappointing to see her adult self as more of a dysfunctional caricature). After getting word that her father Charles has died unexpectedly (Jeffrey Jones not returning for obvious reasons, which the movie goes out of its way to highlight winkingly - and perhaps a bit inappropriately), Lydia joins Astrid and stepmom Delia (Catherine O’Hara) at the old house in Wind River, Connecticut for the funeral.

Without getting into the guts of the plot too deeply, let’s just say that Astrid ends up trapped in the Afterlife… and Lydia has to make a Faustian pact with Beetlejuice to save her. This is actually a great concept for a sequel - so it’s unclear why Burton and writers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar feel so compelled to clutter the works with surplus subplots, such as Beetlejuice’s vengeful ex-wife (Monica Bellucci) randomly running amuck (Willem Dafoe is very funny as a scenery-chewing ghost cop, but he never once feels necessary). But then so much of the script lacks the fine-tuned elegance of the original. Beetlejuice’s return should be the equivalent of Lydia opening Pandora’s Box… and yet, in reality, he’s not safely tucked away - we find him freely chilling in the Afterlife, working a 9-to-5 job overseeing a bio-exorcist office. He still pines for Lydia, but has no apparent designs on rectifying his failure at the altar (he’s had over thirty years, after all)… the character is oddly purposeless, he simply exists in narrative stasis (Lydia, meanwhile, is suddenly stricken with hallucinations of the Juice, for reasons that are never really made clear). This is messy, first draft-type plot construction - the sort usually associated with a project hastened into production. The storytelling seams show almost as badly as the industrial staples stitching Bellucci’s face together.

And yet, Burton’s creative flame manages to reignite, even if only flickeringly so. His intuitive grasp of a visual gag and sense of morbid whimsy remain intact. The spirit of the original still beats at the heart of the picture - even if it frequently suffers from arrhythmia. Keaton, as he showed when he donned the cape and cowl in The Flash last year, hasn’t lost a step, impressively (the film also has the good sense to once again use him sparingly, resisting a sequel’s natural urge to plaster him all over the screen). It is, of course, easy to revere Beetlejuice’s maniacally unrestrained id as a child, but the transition to adulthood means recognizing that Delia was arguably the funniest character all along. Catherine O’Hara remains a treasure in the role, though - like Lydia - her depiction feels inordinately heightened. She’s basically playing a deliberately loopier version of an already broad caricature. Ortega’s fresh presence is vital in terms of keeping things at least semi-grounded. What Burton understands above all else, however, is the macabre appeal of this particular playpen - the creativity of the Afterlife and its layers of bureaucracy still has the capacity to genuinely delight. For a legacy sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice manages to maintain an underseasoned but mostly palatable taste. Like I said - it could have been so much worse.