'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' Brings Tim Burton's Career Back from the Dead
After what seems to be an eternity, Tim Burton finally makes an enjoyable movie. I had fears going into Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Legacy sequels don't often play well. The Force Awakens, for instance, is a movie that feels good when you first watch it but troubles you later when realizing how cheap it was. The same goes for Ghostbusters: Afterlife. The nostalgia warms the heart for the child that you no longer are. When that fuzzy feeling of familiarity wears off, you realize how shallow the movie really is. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice dodges these pitfalls, assuaging my anxiety. Furthermore, it's a much-needed return to form for Tim Burton.
Unlike The Force Awakens or Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice doesn't feel like a soulless cash grab of the original. Upon viewing the first trailer, I thought I had the whole film figured out. Lydia Deetz's (Winona Ryder) daughter goes up to the attic to uncover the famous model that we all remember from the original. During a moment of naivete, Astrid (Jenna Ortega) summons Beetlejuice (or Beetlegeuse), forcing her mom to face her past demon, hopefully vanquishing him for good. My predictions were true. Some of them. Where I was wrong is how the movie is structured. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is surprisingly deeper than the original, catching me off guard in the most pleasant way possible.
We're reintroduced to the Deetz family. Lydia has gone through a big change. She's no longer the introverted teenager who wants to be left alone. Lydia now hosts a reality ghost-hunting show that mixes itself with a live studio audience. It seems like a move that's out of character for Lydia, except it's been 36 years; people can change. As we get to know Lydia throughout the film, it turns out she hasn't changed as much as we think. Lydia's mother, Delia (Catherine O'Hara), is also different from when we last saw her all those years ago. She's still a smug artist. But that doesn't keep her from understanding her family.
A tragedy strikes the Deetzs early in the picture. Charles Deetz, Lydia's father, is dead. How the movie handles having canceled child pornography addict Jeffery Jones in the story is very creative. We get a claymation cartoon of how Charles died, followed by a headless corpse of him when he reaches purgatory. Lydia has a rocky relationship with her daughter. Astrid doesn't believe her mother sees ghosts. Neither does her snobby fiance, Rory (Justin Theroux), who forces Lydia into a loveless engagement.
Meanwhile, in the afterlife, Beetlejuice's literal soul-sucking ex-wife, Delores (Monica Bellucci), is out for revenge against the Juice. The return of Beetlejuice is grand. Michael Keaton has still got it. From his wacky antics to his unattractive horse voice, Beetlejuice is back. The only thing Keaton didn't do as much was scream at people, which I don't entirely mind. The reintroduction to the afterlife is like a welcome mat to the home of nostalgia. Sometimes, the film leans a bit too heavily on it, but not so much where it's heartless. There's an instance where Banana Boat's (Day-O) is sung at Charles' funeral that had me rolling my eyes. Still, it's a clever way of reimplementing the song, considering how much Charles loved being possessed by it in the first movie.
If there is a flaw with the movie, it's that its pacing can drag for a little bit in its middle act. Beetlejuice moves like a Ferrari going through a race course, whereas Beetlejuice Beetlejuice takes a more measured approach. The sequel doesn't jump straight into the world of death. Nor does it rush character development for what Roger Ebert called "gimmicks" in his review of the film. I like that it takes a slower pace, except that it loses the momentum the first one had, especially near the middle act of the film, which cuts between multiple plotlines at once, almost jumbling the narrative. Luckily, Burton keeps his balls in court never focussing too much or too little on each storyline. At one point in the film, I got worried. Astrid meets a boy, Jeremy Frasier (Arthur Conti) regurgitating the boring girl who falls for the sexy boy subplot. Luckily it goes in a sensible direction that pulled the rug out from under me.
The real star of the film is its stellar makeup and production design. The world of the dead hasn't skipped a beat since 1988. That's thanks to Tim Burton's newfound insistence on dropping his overreliance on CGI in favor of puppetry and stop-motion animation. Seeing the sandworm in his old stop-motion form is a splendid return to the old days of movie-making. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice may not be as good as the original film, primarily due to some of its sluggish pacing. But that doesn't stop it from being a good time in the theater. Not only that, but it builds more upon its characters than the first film did without feeling overly cheesy or sentimental. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is Tim Burton doing what he does best. Working on an original idea instead of adapting old TV shows and fairy tales. Come for the hilarious gags. Trust me, there are some great musical pieces from Michael Keaton. It never felt so good to visit the dead in such a long time.
