“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is a stuffed toy bag of a movie. It’s a return to form for Tim Burton only as he is unconcerned about form, but is later in much more interested in the scene and the images. Similarly to where he started his career. The director digs into the bag and shuffles some toys around every minute or so.
I would like to point out that this is not a complaint. It is simply a point of view. This film is enjoyable to the extent that it feels casual to the extreme. One of the important characters is a headless bloody torso eaten by a shark. There are animated characters and even one Claymation-style part, dreams within dreams, tons of musical numbers, a few ‘lets get married or else’ moments, and an insane conclusion that ranks among Burton’s greatest displays of wild creativity. The movie feels like it is really having fun with seeing how far it can go with the limits of a PG-13 rating (for graphic violence alone, it should have been rated an R; although, it could have been saved from that fate because of how disturbingly funny it is, very much like Itchy & Scratchy cartoons on The Simpsons).
So, what is it that you really need to know? Winona Ryder is back as Lydia Deetz, the goth teen that was tricked into marriage by the demon Betelgeuse (aka Beetlejuice, aka Michael Keaton) in the original release from 1988. Now in her forties, Lydia is a widowed medium and is the host of a famous TV show in New York called “Ghost House with Lydia Deetz” and has a teenage daughter, Astrid (burtons Netflix series ‘Wednesday’ star Jenny Ortega) who is a complete hater.
We meet Lydia’s boyfriend, Rory (Justin Theroux), who doubles up as her producer, and claims the self righteous duty of keeping the ex-pill addict Lydia on track (and off the pills). She has a clear understanding of the boundaries they set for themselves. Additionally, Blair’s step-grandmother Delia Deetz (Catharine O’Hara) is now a multimedia gallery artist, DJ, and Influencer, which we can all agree is sensible considering her persona in the first film.
After Delia’s husband Charles unexpectedly dies (originally played by Jeffrey Jones), they all pack their bags and move back to Winter River. It is not long before they come across Beetlejuice, who himself is dealing with an existential crisis. In this scenario, his raging ex-wife Dolores (Monica Bellucci) serves as the cherry on top. If anger was a person, it would be Dolores, the soul-sucking demon who married The Juice (what he likes to call himself) in the 14th century. We all know he used to rob the graves of plague victims. The only reason she was there was to ‘catch’ him and seal the deal. In consideration with Burton’s off center style, August and Millar’s (who also works on ‘Wednesday’) Graphics character design is a different aspect for this movie which looks more cartoonish than the other aspects.
In sickening detail, we’re treated to a corpse ‘reassembling’ herself as she introduces Delores, who will have Burton neophytes thinking of a character from his most proficient work as a producer, ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ by Henry Selick: the patchwork rag doll, Sally.
There’s also, sort of, a romance between Astrid and a boy next door Arthur Conti from “House of the Dragon”, who asks her out on a date Halloween night and accurately points out that Marie Curie dressed before she starts dying of radiation poisoning. The teenage romance parts can only be best described as retro 80s Burton at his peak in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”. They bring out the delightful feeling of a young crush, set off by fun conversations, music, and stories. There could have been more. It’s really wonderful. But also the dynamics of Conti and Ortega’s note perfect performances, the way Burton stages and frames their interactions might have made it more versatile; it could have been the main focus of an entire different film.
Even now, Keaton remains an actor to marvel at. He fits into Beetlejuice’s moldy skin again; an old man with a prom tuxedo lying inside the cabinet, ready to be worn and transported him back to his glory years. Of the other familiar faces, however, the one who stands out is Ryder. She puts forth an aura that is bittersweet and fragile, someone who has changed due to having endured a lot. She encapsulates the essence of a woman who has been beaten down so much, by personal tragedies and missed opportunities, that she cannot change her direction anymore. The best thing to have happened after Netflix’s rise to power is Brenner’s reemergence as a star due to the show ‘Stranger Things’ because his contrived and out-of-touch character served a purpose. In this case, she does portray a middle-aged woman who is a bit worn out, but her flutey voice is still soothing. With Theroux, who has the exceptional ability of portraying a narcissistic idiot without revealing that he is, she is impeccable.
Rather than all the pieces coming together, the many features simply blend into each other and at times clash.
At times, it seems as if Burton leans into the contrived methods just to make them work, as he turns them into a private joke between him and the audience. There are some traces of originality in the building of the underworld as an alternative society, but not without the upside-down morality. It is pretty amusing, though, the satire on bureaucratic jobs and officials rubber stamping forms feels out of place in the 80s, and I mean that in a negative manner. But the sad part is that Burton, costume designer Colleen Atwood, who has been working with Burton since Edward Scissorhands, “Belfast” cinematographer Harris Zamabarloukos, and production designer Mark Scruton, another Wednesday hire, see the world as a massive and distorted playground.
Anyone who has viewed multiple films created by Burton will not be left speechless by what they see in ”Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” It is impossible to imagine how such efforts will look like in the future when they are done on such a large scale like this one, but this is Burton and this is what he does, and has always done, Alex Ross Perry seems to think, and he is not wrong. Burton is a man who has seemingly always straddled the fence between a prop comic and a fully functional magician. He began his career a little bit too late into the animation industry, but managed to bail himself out by branding himself as a gentle goth version of Federico Fellini. It is difficult to trace the timeline accurately, but around the mid-90s, he decided to introduce plot to his ideas, though far easier ideas like Mars Attacks weren’t much of a challenge. It soon felt that he was drowning in an avalanche of polished approaches that came far too automated and easy. The introduction of CGI completely wiped out the magical feeling that provided the charm.
The way he tackles this project is amusing; this is an opportunity for him to relish in his ‘80s directing days when he enjoyed crafting worlds and loved testing the limits of his creativity. As I said, there are probably hundreds of them. Each hand-painted margin detail, unevenly applied hot glue, and machine stitched latex portray the visible feeling of fun. And not only that, it gives perspective that enables us to see the massive thing was made by a human, not software.
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