BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE
MOVIE REVIEW

		Review by E.C.McMullen Jr.
TIM BURTON DIRECTOR PAGE BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE - 2024 USA Release: Sep. 6, 2024 Tommy Harper Productions, Tim Burton Productions, The Geffen Company, Plan B Entertainment, French Film Company, Warner Bros. Rated: USA: PG-13

BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE begins with Lydia Deetz (Wynona Ryder: BEETLEJUICE, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, ALIEN RESURRECTION, STAR TREK [2009], BLACK SWAN, FRANKENWEENIE, STRANGER THINGS [TV]), who is the host of her own TV show, Ghost House.

When last we left Lydia, her Father Charles and Stepmother Delia Deetz (Catherine O'Hara: WITCH'S NIGHT OUT, BEETLEJUICE, DICK TRACY, THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS, CHICKEN LITTLE, MONSTER HOUSE, A MONSTER IN PARIS, FRANKENWEENIE, THE ADDAMS FAMILY [2019]), were getting their lives together, she had the love and attention of the ghostly Maitlands, and she helped defeat a demon called Beetlejuice (Michael Keeton: BEETLEJUICE, BATMAN, PACIFIC HEIGHTS, BATMAN RETURNS, ROBOCOP [2014], SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING, MORBIUS). Lydia was finally living and enjoying a loving, healthy, functional life as a gal who could see ghosts and handle everything.

For reasons that will never be explained, that environment caused her to grow up to be a weak, repressed, easily pushed-around, chump, as well as an anxiety-ridden drug abuser who is self-isolated from her Father, Stepmother, her real mother (still alive but never heard or seen), and her own daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega: IRON MAN 3, INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 2, WEDNESDAY [TV], SCREAM [2022], STUDIO 666, X, SCREAM VI). Lydia has way more issues than Delia did in the first movie.

In this sequel we won't get Lydia's origin backstory.

- or Delia's backstory for that matter. Why the hell are they like this?

The script is all, "Don't know, don't care." The leading characters are as important as Lydia's still living real Mother, who though mentioned in passing, won't get a backstory either.

There may be a certain sense to this. Narcissists who abandon everyone who loves them and surround themselves with manipulative toxic toadies, aren't adventurous, fascinating people.

Nowhere in the English language do you hear the phrase, "As Charming as a Narcissist."

I mean, come on, Simply being Charming is such a basic social tool that even Sociopaths have it locked.

Speaking of charming Sociopaths, we will get Beetlejuice's origin backstory.

In fact, we'll get the backstory of the Villain who figures most prominently in Beetlejuice's backstory.

Now this quickly becomes more convoluted than the many multiple villain backstories of BATMAN RETURNS, so grab your popcorn. Because BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE was written by
Producer Seth Graham-Smith (Tim Burton's DARK SHADOWS, ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER, PRIDE AND PREUDICE AND ZOMBIES), and the writing team of
Producer Alfred Gough (TIMECOP [TV], SPIDER-MAN 2, THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR, I AM NUMBER FOUR, WEDNESDAY [TV]), and
Producer Miles Millar (TIMECOP [TV], SPIDER-MAN 2, THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR, I AM NUMBER FOUR, WEDNESDAY [TV]).

Lydia is in grief because her husband died in South America, but her sorrow over his death is the cherry on top of everything else (and if her grief is genuine or a simple mewl for attention is a switch that flips a lot). The implosion of her character - but not her personality - back into self-pity happened long before that.

Want to sprinkle crushed nuts over that sad sundae? In a blink, Lydia thinks she sees Beetlejuice in her audience, then gets word from Delia that her Father, Charles, is dead from an overdose of plane crash.

But it wouldn't be celebrityhood unless it's an overdose cocktail so he's also half eaten by a shark! And all via animation!

This info overdose overloads Lydia's sad psyche and she's off to the Mediterranean her meds.

Needless to say, in an era where its entertaining to see strong women stories, Lydia's poorly written backslide is a character development I didn't think I'd see and didn't want.

Now Lydia returns to the town of Winter River to attend the funeral with her Show Producer and creepily effeminate boyfriend, Rory (Justin Theroux: AMERICAN PSYCHO, MULHOLLAND DR., INLAND EMPIRE) in tow. Her eternally confused and narcissistic Step Mother, Delia: still needy, still vainly pursuing NYC celebrityhood from the Connecticut outback, is waiting for her, as is the daughter Lydia abandoned for a career in LA celebrityhood (all show biz people in the audience nod their heads, relating to these two main characters. For many, having children is more of a personal liability than a career asset).

Meanwhile, in the afterlife land of the dead, a Janitor (Danny DeVito: BATMAN RETURNS, MARS ATTACKS!, THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, HAUNTED MANSION [2023]) accidentally unleashes a few boxes of butchered demon. She hastily staples herself back together and the Janitor pays for his mistake. This Demon is Delores (Monica Bellucci: BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF, THE MATRIX RELOADED, THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS, THE BROTHERS GRIMM, NEKROTRONIK, SPIDER IN THE WEB, DIABOLIK: GINKO ATTACKS!), the final paramour of Beetlejuice in life. In death Beetlejuice is the one who got away and Delores is out to get him.

Beetlejuice, meanwhile, sporting a square Bruce Campbell chin (instead of actor Michael Keaton's round chin), has become quite the businessman with a staff full of guys who died from head shrinking. People from all over the planet are calling for the Juice's help and, while he's successful, he too misses the one who got away: But for him that's not Delores but Lydia.

Now in the land of the living, what's left of Charles remains are incinerated and cast to the wind, which blows back in everyone's face, though not with the humor we saw in The Big Lebowski. Back at the house and the wake, Rory takes this moment to steal the "spotlight" for himself and surprise everyone with a marriage proposal to Lydia.

Lydia is such a wet dishrag that, despite clearly not wanting to go along with this, also doesn't want to make the scene any more awkward than it already is, and agrees to be his beard.

Witness to her Mother welcoming yet another disaster into her life, Astrid storms off, riding her bike away in the middle of it all.

Angry and careless she crashes through a wood fence into the yard of a boy her age named Jeremy (Arthur Conti), who is amazingly trusting of everything and everyone who bursts into his life the very second it happens, which Astrid finds attractive.

Clearly Astrid's apple didn't fall far from Lydia's tree, and she joins Jeremy in his treehouse.

We get his backstory too, but later.

Meanwhile in the Afterlife, a dead television actor named Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe: THE HUNGER, eXistenZ, AMERICAN PSYCHO, SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE, SPIDER-MAN, SPIDER-MAN 3, ANAMORPH, CIRQUE DU FREAK: THE VAMPIRE'S ASSISTANT, 4:44, JOHN CARTER, ODD THOMAS, DEATH NOTE, THE LIGHTHOUSE, NIGHTMARE ALLEY), is enjoying death by working as a real cop. "Keeping it real!"

We get Wolf's backstory too.

Why? Who the F* knows?

The weight of all of these unnecessary, meandering characters, with subplots all poorly grafted into the main plot, isn't entertaining, its taxing: as is their bloated origin backstories, most of which are delivered in exposition.

Ugh! So Much Exposition!

BEETLEJUICE fans remember characters like the undead case worker Juno (Sylvia Sydney) and Delia's Hanger-on, Otho (Glenn Shadix). We didn't know their origin and we didn't need to. And the fact that we didn't never took anything away from the movie.

After three feature films like this in a row, its awful to think that the days when Tim Burton could effortlessly handle a huge cast, that never meandered and had a point, are gone.

The crown to all of this is, Tim Burton (BEETLEJUICE, BATMAN, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, BATMAN RETURNS, ED WOOD, MARS ATTACKS!, SLEEPY HOLLOW, SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET, ALICE IN WONDERLAND) himself KNOWS how to make a fun yet heart-touching classic piece of entertaining cinema devoid of amatuerish B.S. He has even had movies that flopped at the box office only to find themselves winning Oscars and achieving classic status and a seemingly endless life of ever enlarging audience because they were that good.

BEETLEJUICE is proof of a Tim Burton audience only growing, not shrinking, over the decades.

Which kind of throws his major stumbles (PLANET OF THE APES [2001], DARK SHADOWS) into sharp relief.

Did Tim just get old? Does he still have it?

Yes! Watch the great WEDNESDAY!

To be honest though, the seeds of his stumbles are in that series too. In BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, they rooted and grew.

Then they bloom. How?

I've commented in other reviews on Tim Burton's "silly scene" at or near the end of his films. I love them. They're often done well and become an iconic part of the movie.

Except this time.

BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE has a bloated show stopping poisoned enactment of the entire 7.31 minute song, MacArthur Park, as performed by the 1960s actor who, to this day, is considered to have sung the worst version of it ever (Donna Summer is considered the best but still, the entire freaking song?!?).

Unlike Harry Belafonte's fun and danceable numbers in BEETLEJUICE (which were not enacted to completion), this version of Jimmy Webb's MacArthur Park was sung by a Shakespearean trained actor who, not being a musical entertainer (stage Musicals, yes, but not concert singing), thought he should sing like he did in musicals, acting and dramatically emoting, voice trembling through each and every lyric throughout the entire freaking song.

That's What We Get!

Over 7 minutes of slovenly soap-opera singing, with all of the vocal histrionics of an hour+ long play before the final denouement, and no Johnny Depp to drop in and kick everyone in their ass with his Mad Hatter Futterwacken!

It could have been a funny moment, but not with a 7 minute punchline! 1

You know how long-running, creatively exhausted drama or sitcom showrunners and their Writers jump the shark by having a musical episode? It's like that.

Just editing or cutting that torpid turd out of the picture would have made it So! Much! Better!

Being a 90 minute movie instead of a nearly two hour movie would have made it So! Much! Better!

Though that would likely mean cutting out all of the damn unnecessary origin backstories, which would have also made BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE Much Much better.

The last 5 minutes of this movie (to set up a sequel) don't save the flick, but they too are way better than the hour and 40 minutes that came before.

Watching that final 5 had me snapping out of my boredom like,

"Wait! What? Well here's Tim! This is Tim Burton right here! So who the hell was guiding all this other bullshit?"

Three barely earned Shriek Girls.

This review copyright 2024 E.C.McMullen Jr.

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