Legacy sequels continue to be all the rage in the 2020s with all sorts of differing results. Whether its a new Bad Boys, Exorcist, Twister, Ghostbusters, Evil Dead, Top Gun, Matrix, Rocky, Mad Max, or event TV series follows ups like Willow or The Dark Crystal, these attempts to mine the gold of long beloved old films continue to churn out. From next generation story continuations to full on new casts in similar story, writers are trying all sorts of ways to recycle these ideas. But I'm not sure anyone has gone as balls to the wall bonkers as Burton did with his long gestating Beetlejuice sequel.
Burton's recent output hasn't been the most odd ball but sort of felt like a tamed version of his signature style. But by revisiting his second ever feature, a film that was odd (Day-O!) but surprisingly commercial, seems to have reignited a demented sense of playfulness that has produced a madcap script and old school aesthetic (Burton's "hand drawn" looking visuals and practical effect heavy sensibility) that has been missing from his work. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is rambling mess of a story featuring body horror vibes and randomness that really shouldn't work... but it does. There are characters there for little to no reason, plot threads that come and go, and motivations which seems questionably illogical, yet it all comes together to be very satisfying and bizarrely hilarious.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice leans in to the original film's often forgotten distastefulness. There is a lot that is gruesomely terrifying here that is papered over with a dark humour. I think we often gloss over the fact that the title character is a predatory villain and much of what happens is dark. Much of what makes the first film work is how well Burton and Keaton integrated the darkness with the comedy. It was very much about processing our greatest fears and unanswerable questions about death through laughter and this sequel gets that. We're processing a lot of trauma here and doing so through the kind full throated humour which makes us hurt from laughing. By the time the film gets to its MacArthur Park sequence, a full on wackadoodle moment of sheer cinematic beauty, we are full in on Burton's vision for mixing pain and comedy.
Is the film perfect? No. Keaton's Betelgeuse feels a bit tired (something that worked for him revisiting an elderly Bruce Wayne in The Flash but here doesn't feel quite right for an ageless demon/ghost). When he says the line "the Juice is loose" it just feels a bit off. And Ryder's constant exasperated expression feels meta, like she's playing herself playing Lydia instead of playing Lydia herself. I have mixed feelings about Monica Belucci's appearance. She's gonzo sexy in an unsettling body horror way but her character is also rather pointless, often just wandering around for many scene. Yet her scenes are some of the most delightful in the story. Theroux's character is more annoying that constructively villainous and the plot holes related to Cabrera's character are big enough to drive a truck through. But I guess it's nice to see a male character be fridged for a female character's story arc for a change.
Sure I could pull apart a lot of this film but I don't want to cause it tapped something fun and effective in its blend of deep seeded fear and guttural laughter. See it. You'll want to get on the Soul Train too. I didn't mention DaFoe but kudos to him for clearly having the. most fun of anyone in the whole film!
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Starring: Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O'Hara, Jenna Ortega, Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Willem Dafoe, Burn Gorman, Danny DeVito, Santiago Cabrera, Amy Nuttall, Arthur Conti
Director: Tim Burton
Writers: Alfred Gough, Miles Millar
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