Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, 2024.
Directed by Tim Burton.
Starring Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega, Catherine O’Hara, Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Willem Dafoe, Arthur Conti, Burn Gorman, Danny DeVito, Filipe Cates, Amy Nuttall, Gianni Calchetti, Nick Kellington, Santiago Cabrera, Sami Slimane, Amy Nuttall, Liv Spencer, Skylar Park, Rebecca O’Mara and Adam Speers.
SYNOPSIS:
After a family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia’s life is turned upside down when her teenage daughter, Astrid, accidentally opens the portal to the Afterlife.
At one point during Tim Burton’s legacy sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Catherine O’Hara’s Delia Deetz asks her stepdaughter, Winona Ryder’s Lydia, what happened to the obnoxious goth teenager that would torment her. It’s a fair question, as 30+ years have apparently kept up Lydia’s physical appearance, but she is a shell of her former self. One could probably ask Tim Burton a similar question phrased as “What happened to that dark and imaginative macabre outsider edge and a flair for genuinely quirky storytelling utilizing several styles of special effects ranging from stop motion to puppetry to more traditional green screen,” which is something the filmmaker has answered here by making his most pleasantly weird and playful movie in years, even if an overstuffed narrative and the usual excessive nostalgia pandering stopping the fun dead.
Anyway, Lydia now uses her “strange and unusual” paranormal gifts as a hokey service, checking out haunted houses for whoever employs her in reporting the findings on a taped talk show, going over the night vision goggle spooky footage like it’s one of those tacky Syfy channel ghost hunting shows. She also happens to be a widowed mother to teenage daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega), with a fractured relationship following the tragic death of her father. Astrid isn’t just perpetually grieving but also hurting and convinced her mom is a con artist since, for some reason, he is seemingly the only dead person she can’t contact. If that wasn’t enough, there is also a slimy business associate and new significant other in the picture, Justin Theroux’s Rory, putting up a supportive mask through a hipster, manipulatively sensitive, non-masculine persona.
Also, Lydia keeps hallucinating Beetlejuice (uh-oh, I’ve already said his name three times) all over the place, whether in the audience or among Astrid’s schoolmates dressed up for Halloween parties. But really, it’s because nowadays, movie studios think audiences have no patience and need to catch a glimpse of Beetlejuice within the first two minutes not to feel like they are wasting their time. As for the dead couple at the center of the 1988 classic, played by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis, who served as her paranormal awakening, I won’t say whether or not they appear.
As for that titular profane bio exorcist (played by a returning Michael Keaton who hasn’t skipped a beat when it comes to comedic timing and the trademark hoarse voice), he has a major role within the afterlife agency, a location that has been greatly expanded regarding space and characters, yet still somewhat elusive in terms of the function of it all and these new groups. For some reason, the shrunken-head dudes are now everywhere (I was under the impression it was just another dead guy in the waiting room of the original film’s epilogue) and working under the command of Beetlejuice in these offices. There is an afterlife police force led by none other than Willem Dafoe as a deceased action star who brushed off stunt teams one too many times and has brain matter partially visible over one side of his face to show for it. For a dead man, he is also rather excited about conducting his job.
The point is that there is no shortage of ideas in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, with the film, at times, feeling like less of a well-structured and cohesive narrative and more of Tim Burton trying to lift the middle finger to anyone who thought his magical mind was rotting away somewhere in that same afterlife agency. That’s without even mentioning the inspired reanimation musical number sequence for Monica Belluci’s Delores, a soul-sucker once married to Beetlejuice and hellbent on revenge. Meanwhile, among the living, Astrid pushes herself further away from the family and develops an attraction to Arthur Conti’s Jeremy, even though he worships the legend of Lydia Deetz.
One name you might be surprised (or not, depending on your knowledge of the personal lives of celebrities) to have not seen yet is Charles, husband of Delia. All one has to do is Google Jeffrey Jones to find out why that character has been killed off, bringing forth a family reunion at the Winter River family home. With so much going on, it’s almost inevitable that some characters or aspects practically feel wasted. Bluntly put, this is chaotic storytelling that isn’t helped by this sequel taking place all over the neighborhood rather than the confined space of one home like the original film. Even the afterlife is its living (or dead) breathing world, with Tim Burton taking every opportunity to depict the silly ways in which people might have died and ended up in the waiting room.
Since replaying the hits is what most of these 30-years later sequels amount to, you can expect familiar songs, the iconic Danny Elfman theme over replica-opening credits, visual gags lifted right from the original, and maybe even an attempted wedding or several. Working together with screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (with Seth Grahame-Smith, based on characters created by Michael McDowell and Larry Wilson), Tim Burton also injects Beetlejuice Beetlejuice with enough freshly deranged weirdness and some sincerely sweet character moments alongside a carnival of crazy.
Pointed commentary on trauma-bonding, suburbanite sellouts, art-scene pretentiousness, and greed backed by a charming ensemble of beloved faces and newcomers alike also elevate the structurally sloppy material. You might not want to watch it three times or even twice, but Beetlejuice Beetlejuice showcases that perhaps Tim Burton’s warped imagination still has some juice left worth squeezing.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
