Director: Tim Burton Writers: Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, Seth Grahame-Smith Starring: Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega, Monica Bellucci, Willem Dafoe, Catherine O’Hara Rated: PG-13 for violent content, macabre and bloody images, strong language, some suggestive material and brief drug use.
Synopsis: Beetlejuice is back! After an unexpected 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 rebellious teenage daughter, Astrid, discovers the mysterious model of the town in the attic and the portal to the Afterlife is accidentally opened. With trouble brewing in both realms, it's only a matter of time until someone says Beetlejuice's name three times and the mischievous demon returns to unleash his very own brand of mayhem.
Review: You can never completely trust reviews coming from major film festivals. There is something in the pomp and circumstance that can distort the opinions of even the most reliable witnesses. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to be swallowed up by the excitement.
So, when reviews for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice started to appear following its premiere at the Venice Film Festival were gushing with praise, I knew that I should still temper my expectations. I’m thankful that I did.
It should surprise no one that Bettlejuice has been a favorite of mine ever since I saw it in theaters in 1988. I wasn’t fully creepy at that point, the indicators where there, and as such I was drawn to Winona Ryder and the unusual world that Tim Burton had built around her. The general sense of bizarre is a place I’d like to visit.
Beetlejuice didn’t need a sequel. It already had an unnecessary, but often entertaining, cartoon spin-off that had respectfully extended those characters’ lives.
Still, I was excited when Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was announced with Burton and most of the cast was returning. The only question was the script. Surely writing partners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (Spider-Man 2, Wednesday) with a little help from Seth Grahame-Smith could come up with something suitable.
They’ve somewhat succeeded. There’s a perfectly good story at the heart of the film that focuses on the fractured relationship between Lydia (Ryder) and her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega). It’s not that Astrid doesn’t share some of her mother’s passion for the great unknown, but the mourning for her recently dead father has left her sullen, distant, and confused.
Given the opportunity to see her father again, Astrid ventures into the afterlife.
This, combined with the excellent subplot involving Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe), a dead actor who spent the bulk of his life typecast as hardboiled detective who died while performing one too many of his own stunts, would have made for a lively and cohesive story. Beetlejuice could just be a rogue agent helping and hindering Wolf and Lydia as they followed clues. There’d even be enough room for Monica Bellucci’s Delores who, in the film as it is presented, has shockingly little impact on the actual story.
Too much time is devoted to Catherine O’Hara’s Delia Deetz and her recently dead husband (Jeffery Jones appears in Claymation form and then as a headless corpse). The Claymation scenes are cool, but couldn’t they focus on a different character that audiences might care about? I’d jettison Justin Theroux’s Rory completely. There’s only enough room for one manipulative jerk and his name is in the film’s title.
There are moments that work quite well. There are stretches that feel superfluous. It’s too much of a mixed bag to be celebrated, but not disastrous enough to leave me bothered.
