Review: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Score: 3/4
Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice feels like a return to form for the filmmaker, because it contains so much creative vitality. The camera is often in motion, we’re back to old school sets, make-up and animatronic effects, and the story takes weird, unexpected turns. This is that rare studio movie that is truly eccentric, even adventurous, in its best stretches.
Winona Ryder returns as Lydia Deetz, now a single mother raising Astrid (played by Jenna Ortega), a sullen teenage daughter. Lydia hosts a paranormal TV show only slightly better than the one Peter Venkman fronted in Ghostbusters II (1989) and has been summoned by Delia, her insane artist mother (played again by Catherine O’Hara) to attend her father’s funeral. Meanwhile, in the afterlife, Beetlejuice (played by Michael Keaton) is working a dead-end job but becomes rejuvenated when he discovers that Lydia, his alive runaway bride, is returning to his world. Worse still, Astrid doesn’t believe in the afterlife and doesn’t know that there are three words you should never say.
There’s a lot of story here, though the best bits shine brighter than the overextended scenes that must have played better on paper. Despite the ghoulish humor and gross-out bits, the film’s center is sweet. As in the first film, being dead is presented as a highly bureaucratic, much worse version of human life. Suicide, not living your best life and giving up on your dreams is highly frowned upon, as the film is telling us to avoid being dead at all costs. However, the earnestness only goes so far, as the most touching scene is underscored by a ghost embedded with piranhas, whose tails flap wildly during a tear-inducing family reunion. Outside of his wonderful Frankenweenie (2012), Burton hasn’t made a movie this cracked in ages.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice survives a bumpy first act but is still an overplotted sequel. It’s strange to say that the movie doesn’t need Willem Dafoe’s character, as I kept forgetting he was in this and sometimes had to remind myself why his role is a part of the story. Likewise, Monica Bellucci’s villain, who vanishes for so much of the second act that the tension her character creates is gone by the grand finale. Surprisingly, the best of the subplots involves a character played by Arthur Conti that is best seen and not described.
Justin Theroux is alright as a would-be suitor for Lydia, though the role would have gone farther and been much funnier if it were played by the film’s executive producer: Brad Pitt. The original had some dead spots too, and they were all the scenes satirizing the bohemian art world and centering on the couple played by O’Hara and Jeffrey Jones.
Speaking of Jeffrey Jones- the once great character actor who became known for questionable offscreen behavior is a small part of this movie. On the one hand, he has been written out of the story. However, there are so many shots of his likeness throughout, he was probably paid as much for his likeness rights as he would have been for an actual cameo appearance.
Ortega is as pivotal to this movie as Ryder was in the original. So is the music, as Danny Elfman’s score is a robust and playful reprise of his deranged circus-sounding score and the use of two songs (one a soaring love song by Richard Marx and another an endless ballad I’ve always hated by Richard Harris) are truly inspired.
Keaton is oddly reserved in the early stretch but finally cuts loose in the latter half. As good as he is here (his best bits maintain a logic right out of Looney Tunes), his best performance this year is still in Knox Goes Away, the vehicle he directed and stars in. Ryder is excellent and appears to be as rejuvenated here as her returning collaborators.
As with the first movie, most of the characters are self-absorbed and hard to like, but the best scenes are blissfully funny. This is easily Burton’s strongest, funniest and grossest live action film since Mars Attacks! In fact, it’s so good, I’m hopeful for a third helping of the Ghost with The Most.
