When you actually stop to consider just how completly out of its mind Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice is, it’s something of a major motion picture miracle that the movie is as close to perfect as it is. Balancing genuine wit with complete and utter anarchy, Burton managed to create a cartoonish world that perfectly encapsulated the term Burton-esque and helped goth culture gain a major foothold in popular culture to boot – not a bad shout force sophomore movie.
However, nearly forty years later, we now have an obligatory legacy sequel that throws in a bunch of new (and sometimes mangled) faces to rejoin the old in an attempt to not only recapture some of that old black magic, but to give Burton himself a much needed shot in the arm after years of working on Disney movies had seemed to eroded much of his mojo. However, the task certainly wouldn’t be easy, because to create a perfect Beetlejuice sequel would seem to be next to impossible. Thankfully, Burton and co. haven’t even bothered to try and the movie is all the better for it.
We rejoin the Deetz family in something of a state of turmoil as a now-grown Lydia hosts her own reality TV show where she uses her skills at seeing the supernatural to explore haunted houses. However, since the death of her husband in South America years earlier, the relationship with her teenage daughter, Astrid, has become relentlessly strained but she’s forced to reunite bith with her child and her flaky, artist stepmother, Delia, when she receives news that her father has been killed in a plane crash/shark attack incident. If all this wasn’t bad enough, her controlling, patronising boyfriend/producer, Rory, is trying to needle her into marriage and Lydia is starting to have flashing visions of a certain black and white suited bio-exorcist which can only mean the baddest of bad news…
Meanwhile, on the other side, we find that thirty-six years later, Betelgeuse, has finally escaped that waiting room of the damned and has oddly found himself a desk job in the afterlife, but still pines for Lydia whom he once tried to marry in order to find a loophole to escape death itself. However, unbeknownst to the moldy huckster, his vengeful, succubus, ex-wife, Dolores, has finally managed to put her jumbled remains back together and is looking to get even with her former hubby who was responsible for chopping her up in the first place.
Adding to the frenzied chaos is Astrid having a chance meeting with the dashing Jeremy and is soon on her way from having her first boyfriend, the continued hullabaloo concerning Charles’ funeral and the presence of ghostly actor-turned-dectective Wolf Jackson, that turns an already complex farce into a melee of insanely spectral proportions.
Can even the ghost with the most manage to (sand) worm his way out of this one?
There was a very real sense that Tim Burton has finally succumbed to the exactly system he seemed to oppose after he turned in his live action version of Disney’s Dumbo. Too many Disney adaptations and endless pairings with Johnny Depp had rendered his once original visions predictable and tired and even the films that hinted that the old trickster was still there (Sweeny Todd, Big Eyes), were soon dwarfed by the mass of CGI that was the likes of Alice In Wonderland. However, after the filmmaker switched to TV for a spell with the overwhelmingly popular Wednesday, an old fire seemed to spark up in his chest once more and soon after, the announcement of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice seemed to indicate that the old fire was still there. However, in many ways, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is simultaneously both a make or break deal for Burton and a real chance to blow off the cobwebs and get back to making the endearing weird shit he used to make back in the days of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, Ed Wood and, of course, Beetlejuice; but can even a revitalized Burton manage to equal the expectations of fans who worship at the gothic alter of the man who made stripes clothes hip? The answer, obviously, is no; but that doesn’t stop Beetlejuice Beetlejuice from being an arch slice of madcap lunacy that – for all its faults – I genuinely didn’t want to end.
Finally let loose from projects he wasn’t 100% fully into, Burton has overcompensated wildly, crafting a film so full of skits, jokes and fevered world building, the the whole thing is one big, noisy mess. Characters are added with expansive introductions that never really pay off while numerous side plots either fizzle out or are taken care of weirdly quickly in order to make room for multiple dance routines and musical interludes while everyone jostles for space. Monica Bellucci’s stapled together, soul sucking antagonist, Dolores (I mean, I think she’s an antagonist as the film never truly cements what she’s supposed to be) has a magnificent intro as she compiles her scattered limbs, but then literally spends the rest of the film wandering about in search of her errant hubby. Similarly, Willem Defoe’s obviously having the time of his life as the magnificently egotistical actor who has turned to a solver of crimes, but the story doesn’t actually give him anything to do within the bustling, crowded plot.
However, while Beetlejuice Beetlejuice suffers some truly glaring story issues, Burton is having such a laugh crafting ever more deranged shit, he obviously could give a single shit about things like plot holes or pacing. And in fact, why should he when the images the film constantly offers up are so deliciously out of their mind. In fact, the sequel takes such steps to go gard or go home, you’ll constantly be in a state of stunned amusement at how ballsy it all really is. Take the utterly insane attempts to work around the understandable absence of disgraced actor Jeffrey Jones that include stop motion montages and his character wandering around the afterlife after having his top half bitten off by a shark; or the continued usage of a cadre of shrunken headed phone operators headed up by the panic stricken Bob; or the disco themed Soul Train; or the truly freakish Betelgeuse baby. This is obviously the work of a Burton who now feels as free as a bird – I mean, who else would think to tell the origin of Betelgeuse and Dolores in the style of a black and white, Mario Bava film or ending things with a possession focused, brain melting, rendition of Richard Harris’ Mcarthur Park.
Amidst this maelstrom of candy coloured ghoulishness, the returning original cast (sans the Maitlands) manage to keep their heads comfortably above the torrent of goodness and carve out their own plots rather nicely. The original goth girl Winona Ryder takes the lead as a Lydia who is struggling to reconcile with the fact that her relationship with Astrid (Jenna Ortega in a slightly chirpier mood than Wednesday) has turned out like the one she had with her stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara fully embracing the chaos in the style of Moira Rose from Schitt’s creek), but it’s obviously Michael Keaton’s Betelgeuse who is the real draw and it’s a relief to see that that while hes not quite as funny as he is in the original film, he’s lost none of that manic energy that made the character so beloved. Although, I have to say, in a comedy rich with visual puns and crazed performances, kudos have to go to Justin Theroux’s utterly toxic Rory for nearly managing to steal the entire movie.
Sure it’s uneven as Betelgeuse’s hairline, but the sheer, unrepentant silliness of the thing, mixed with some wonderfully analogue effects work mean that this is one legacy sequel that will have you chuckling all Day-O.
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