Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton
Week of September 2, 2024
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Rated PG-13 for macabre and bloody images, brief drug use, some suggestive material, strong language and violent content
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 81%
In Theaters
It has been over 35 years since the original Beetlejuice introduced himself to us, although that movie was so iconic that it has never really left us, and even recently resurged with an impressive Broadway musical version. So now young Lydia (Wynona Rider) is a mother with a dead husband and a daughter of her own (Jenna Ortega) who is not overly fond of her or her new fiancé (Justin Theroux). When a dismembered body in the afterlife comes back together in the form of a stapled-up beauty (Monica Belluci) and starts killing ghosts, her former husband Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) desperately begins to try to reach back out to Lydia to attempt to force her to help him figure out a way to stop his wife from seeking her revenge against him. As you can tell from this loose plot description, there is a lot going on here and not much of it is fully realized. What works is the nostalgia for the first film and how good Michael Keaton is as the chaotic demon. Also interesting is Catherine O’Hara as the dimwit mother in law and her antics. Unfortunately, a lot of the film feels like half-way thought out antics that just never come to life. And much of the payoff you are just waiting for simply doesn’t happen. The daughter’s boyfriend fizzles. Beetlejuice’s wife fizzles. By the end, much of the subplots just disappear into thin air. The characters are fun, as are the actors playing them, but I wish they put as much effort into storytelling here as they did production. That being said, the production is solidly creative, both on Earth and in the Afterlife. I also loved Danny Elfman’s score, especially since he hasn’t been very active as of late. But honestly, Tim Burton seems to be a little off here. Like he’s basically saying “you want another Beetlejuice? I’ll give you another Beetlejuice,” as he opens his notebook and throws out a bunch of ideas with no bearing. I have to admit, I wasn’t a huge fan of the original as I thought it was too short and didn’t have enough meat on the bone. So I guess I got a little more of the same here. C+