Beetlejuice (& Other Films That Should Have Been One-Offs) | Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) Movie Review
Men in Black, Ghostbusters, Beetlejuice — some films cry out not to have sequels 😫
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I hated Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Let me get that out of the way. I was actively resentful of the movie by the time I was 20 minutes into it, and would have turned it off, had I not intended to write about it. Plus, I’d already started tweeting, so… maybe I should be mad at myself. I don’t know. I was definitely mad, though.
Reading comments Tim Burton or Michael Keaton or anyone that worked on this movie have made about its pre-production is infurating. First, they waited 36 years to make this, after the original Beetlejuice in 1988.
That says one of two things to me: either they waited and waited until they got the story right, the moment right, until inspiration struck and it all worked OR they waited until they couldn’t withstand the pressure of the studio demand for a sequel/reboot of a proven-profitable IP.
Having seen the film, I don’t get the feeling that inspiration struck, however much Burton, Keaton, et al. might protest to the contrary. I guess I can’t speak to what’s in anyone’s heart or mind, but if this is what authenticity, sincerity and earnest effort look like, then maybe I don’t want those things, after all.
I have a theory about why this movie looks so cheap (because it decidedly isn’t). At the time in his career he would have been making Beetlejuice (for a reported $15 million), Burton would have been on a tight leash, fighting for every dime he got. So the original Beetlejuice is a triumph of ingenious frugality, but this Beetlejuice has to ape its style, and so is either only able to replicate the original aesthetic in a way that looks cheap now, or depart from that aesthetic entirely and lose the nostalgia and familiarity it’s trading on.
I don’t know whether it’s been canonically established in comics or television shows I didn’t read or watch what Beetlejuice’s backstory is. According to this film, he murdered his wife (who had just poisoned him) and hacked up her body, sometime (I believe) in the 14th century.
Now, Beetlejuice has never claimed to be a great guy, and I don’t think we get the impression from his methods or the original script that he’s especially ethical or moral.
I get it, he’s kind of a bad guy.
However, the specificity of uxoricide felt distinctly uncool to me. Both because murdering one’s wife (whether in retaliation for a fatal poisoning or not) isn’t cool, and because rather than expanding or enriching his backstory, this particular specificity makes him granularly, specifically uncool and unfunny.
This movie is like a fractal that you can view at any magnification or length or clip any tiny or large piece of, and the same thing will be true: it’s not compelling, worthwhile, funny or good. Snip five seconds, snip five minutes — makes no difference.
Justin Theroux — a writer and actor I’ve often enjoyed when he turns up in stuff, and who gave a nuanced and masterful performance through three seasons of one of the best shows ever made, The Leftovers — is disastrous as the Otho-replacement (Otho actor Glenn Shadix died in 2010) Rory. His one-note, caricaturish performance wears thin in seconds.
I think metatextual jokes are an artistic accelerant. If I like the product and find it worthy already, then metatextual references or jokes are satisfying flourishes that round out an already-good experience.
If I am disliking or not on board with what a movie is doing, then those kind of narrative flourishes are enraging. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is rotten with them, winking, knowing nods to the audience, but I could not have been less in the mood for them.
Every scene of this movie is a slog. Keaton seems to be having fun, but no one else really seems to be. Willem Defoe is in it, and he’s got a lot of screen time, and none of it works, not for a second. You could also remove him from the plot entirely, and not change it one iota. His character, like every facet of this film, is absolutely inessential.
This is just a theory, but I think that the attempt — with all the studio wealth and special effects gurus in the world — to recreate the cheap-charm of a bygone-era is destined to fail. In this instance, it wound up looking both cheap and insubstantial, like it was filmed in The Mandalorian’s Volume with Spirit Halloween set decoration.
I don’t necessarily think this is the fault of the art department or set decorators. I think they probably did exactly what they were asked to do, but the request was cursed from the word Go. The aesthetic of the original Beetlejuice (which was also revolutionary, at the time, something never seen before) was the result of talented, creative individuals overcoming budgetary restraints with ingenuity; Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’s aesthetic is the result of talented, creative individuals with infinite resources trying to recapture the spirit and ingenuity of the original.
The results speak for themselves.
Does anyone remember the movie Casper from 1995? I had a huge crush on Christina Ricci at the time, so I watched it a lot.
It’s a better film than Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and it’s not great. But both share a sensibility regarding death and ghosts, and employ Looney Tunes logic and physics, though I’d again argue Casper wore it better.
Jenna Ortega’s inclusion seems designed to draw in a younger crowd, but if that move were to be successful (and I guess it was, because the movie turned a $200+ million profit at the box office), then what are the young people to do with the two lengthy Soul Train disco dance sequences? I’m 37 and familiar with Soul Train, and didn’t get it or think it was funny. Who was this for?
To be candid, the first film’s third act is a bit of a mess. It’s a hodgepodge of ideas, zanily climaxing in a — key word here — satisfying fashion.
This sequel matches the zany energy of the first — while also inexplicably becoming a musical for six minutes — but lacks any of the charm or momentum. My reaction to everything transpiring onscreen in the final moments of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was, ‘sure, that might as well happen.’
Some films are testaments to how out-of-touch their creators are. Megalopolis is a modern example.
I don’t know what’s in the man’s heart, but this film suggests to me that Tim Burton is out-of-touch. A lot of the ‘jokes’ felt like what we all put up with at holiday dinner tables from our boomer relatives, like railing against therapy and social media influencers. No nuanced, thoughtful, comedic takes — just a reflexive, old-man knee-jerk revulsion to the idea that someone might even be a social media influencer.
It’s not offensive when boomers do this, by the way.
It just isn’t amusing, either.
The red dress is iconic. I once wore it for Halloween (and at work leading up to Halloween, because I worked at a lingerie/sex shop at the time). And I’m a redhead, who doesn't even look good in red. So don’t get me wrong — I’m a fan of the red dress.
Its value drops from appearing in this film. For me, that’s now a less-iconic look, because when I encounter it, I think not of just the original film, but also the sequel, where the dress showed up again in a much-worse movie.
And let’s address that: although a lot of the discourse surrounding nostalgia and IP of the past is toxic and well worth discarding wholesale, there is truth to the idea that you can ruin or tarnish a previous incarnation with a lazy, crass attempt to cash in on it currently.
There’s no comparison between a Homestead and a Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. This movie is at least trying to be a film, and knows what the basic tasks involved are. I’d argue Homestead doesn't even manage to be a movie, while Beetlejuice Beetlejuice manages only to be a very-bad, no-good movie.
Both took days, if not weeks, off my life from watching, though, I can just feel it. If you’re anything like me, avoid Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, even — and especially — if you have any love or nostalgia for the original.
