Three years after his directorial debut, 1985’s Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, director Tim Burton unleashed an equally scary, funny, and intriguing exploration of the afterlife starring Michael Keaton as a one-of-a-kind poltergeist named Beetlejuice. It would go on to define one of the most influential careers in modern cinema. Almost 40 years later, Burton and Keaton return with the long-awaited sequel to that critical and cultural smash, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.
Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice picks up 36 years after the first film's events. Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder), now a supernatural talk show host, her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega), and her stepmother (Catherine O’Hara) return to Winter River to mourn her father's death. However, things take a turn when Lydia does some exploring in the town and home of her mother’s roots.
After a more than three-decade layoff, what does the Ghost With the Most bring to the table? With a nice cast despite not having Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin, you’d get more than what Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice brings trying to squeeze blood from a turnip.
In Burton’s recent works such as Dark Shadows, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, and even Dumbo, the innovative auetuer’s knack for blending odd yet spectacular visuals with coherent storytelling has taken a hit. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice continues that downtrend as nothing pops about it visually or otherwise.
Maybe it’s a sign of the times, but elements Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice meant to disgust, scare, or shock you pack all of the wallop you’d get from a trip to Walmart. Almost everything Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice features, from the soul-sucking woman with a piecemeal body to the borderline offensive interpretation of the “Soul Train” with random folks dancing everywhere, are right there on your journey to Aisle L15 for shipping tape. Simply put, Burton’s freakish and kooky gotchas are a parade of meh that have evolved into standard stuff you see daily.
The more problematic issue in Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice’s failure to launch is the fact that it’s not a Beetlejuice movie. That’s right, Beetlejuice is basically a fourth-rate supporting character in his return to the silver screen. While it’s understandable to move the Beetlejuice lore in a different direction given the time that has passed, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar’s script almost moves on without Beetlejuice entirely.
Instead of following the OG film’s lead and walking a blurred line between horror, fantasy, and comedy, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice is more like a haunted Gilmore Girls episode. The primary focus is the respective plights and relationships of the Deetz women, which takes the film everywhere but where we want to go – to see Beetlejuice. Even Lydia’s stepmom, Delia, gets more run than the titular character in the movie named after him twice. Even when the (dead) guy we came to see shows up, it’s an uneventful retread of gags straight from 1988.
Beetlejuice: Beetlejuice is what happens when a legacy sequel catches the wrong side of two extremes. On one hand, it doesn’t evolve or change enough for what made it unique to work in the current climate. On the other hand, it leans so much into the wrong thing(s) that it loses touch with what it needs to be special. With that said, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice joins the Brooklyn Nets KD, Kyrie, and Harden trio, Bone-Three 6 Mafia Verzuz, and celebrity Ask Me Anything sessions on the list of things that should have stayed ideas instead of being brought to reality.
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