Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: an unbaked cake full of nonsense

By A&E Editor Goonja Basu

From the great mind of Tim Burton comes the truly atrocious film, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. A sequel to the 1988 cult classic Beetlejuice, the film shows how far Burton has fallen as a director in terms of creativity and talent. It confuses the original film’s whimsy with gaucheness, resulting in a horrifically muddled mess.

The film, released on September 6, focuses on Astrid (Jenna Ortega), who is the daughter of Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder), as Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) strives to claw his way out of the afterlife. It explores Beetlejuice’s life during the 12th century, a topic not developed in the original film, by introducing his psychotic ex-wife, Delores (Monica Belluci). However, these two disparate storylines don’t come together until the final act; even then, the collision feels disjointed and rushed.

The film tries to rekindle the flame of nostalgia with the sequel, even going so far as to recreate the original opening sequence, but it succeeds neither as a sequel nor a standalone movie. Lydia loses all of her eccentricity, the heart of the original film. Once characterized as an independent and compassionate girl, her role is now reduced to her unwilling attachment to Beetlejuice and being a mother — and a bad one at that. Most notably, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice chooses to exclude Maitlands, the married couple who were the main protagonists and catalysts to the Beetlejuice phenomenon. They were the ones that called on Beetlejuice in the 1980s, bringing him into the Deetz family’s lives and back out again as the main characters. By just addressing them as nothing more than a throwaway line in the middle of the film, the script directly undermines the franchise, retconning and erasing much of the meaning and plot of the 1988 film.

Despite the fantastical plot, it fails to hide the one-dimensional nature of the characters. Astrid is the epitome of a moody teenager who opens up to only have a boy break her heart. The money-hungry nature of her grandmother, Delia (Catherine O’Hara), contradicts the value she placed on art in the first film. Firing her art agent 35 years ago because he valued selling her art has now shifted to abandoning her beloved granddaughter at a boarding school in pursuit of money. Delia’s drive — her core — has been changed for the worse. Lydia’s agent boyfriend, Rory (Justin Theroux), is made to be an antagonist from the beginning and fails to present a redeeming quality that makes the audience understand why she stays with him.

The film gives unequal amounts of time to certain characters over others, such as sidelining Delores despite her being a large part of the overarching plot. Unfortunately, Delores’ revival storyline lives in a separate world from the real life Lydia and Beetlejuice are in, not meeting until a ridiculously laughable climax that involves a musical number. Despite the film’s overall unseriousness, the scene is messy and hard to follow, with all established characters and several more that add nothing to the plot mingling together. While notable as the climax, memories of the scene escape the mind easily. Delores receives no redeeming qualities or background information. She is simply written off as a cult leader for no explanation as to how or why she got there, as is necessary for a well-developed antagonist.

The only moderately redeeming quality of the film are the costumes. Keaton creates a terrifyingly creepy Beetlejuice look, with a ghostly face and erratically spiky hair. Ortega and Ryder both stun in the strange, aged pieces they wear, that somehow work despite the 2024 setting. Even Delores looks accordingly dramatic and Frankenstein-like, with her flowing black dress and stitched-together makeup look.

The film drags on despite its two and a half hour runtime, the standard in today’s industry. By creating a story with no background and being far too satirical, any pacing Burton tried to find failed horrifically. 

Although the original Beetlejuice was far from a good film, its sequel falls even further. The film personally falls on the bottom of this year’s film rankings, but Beetlejuice Beetlejuice clearly depicts Burton’s declining directorial ability.

 

Grade: D-