By Bob Garver
In preparation for “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” I watched the original film from 1988. I found that I liked “some” things about it, like the set and character designs and much of the humor, but it’s not a film I would recommend overall. The special effects weren’t well-integrated (even for the 80’s), motivations between the warring factions made no sense, and worst of all, the characters just weren’t likeable. I’m not talking about obvious villains like the ruthless profiteers or Michael Keaton’s sleazy trickster-for-hire Betelgeuse (hereafter referred to as “Beetlejuice”). I mean that I couldn’t even root for harmless yuppie couple the Maitlands (you guys are dead, find something to do with your eternal lives and stop bothering the living) or Winona Ryder’s teenage goth icon Lydia Deetz (“’somebody’ wants attention”). The good news is that the new film is better about making its protagonists likeable. The bad news is that, while it addresses one issue, others remain and a few new ones pop up.
The story finds the now-adult Lydia returning to her family’s old home to attend her father’s funeral. In tow are her eccentric artist stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara, reprising her role from the first movie), her manipulative fiancé Rory (Justin Theroux), and her distant daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega). Though moody around her family and bullies, Astrid isn’t as standoffish as Lydia was in the original. She even makes friends with local boy Jeremy (Arthur Conti) and the two have a sweet little romance that you know is too wholesome for this movie, so something’s going to have to go wrong.
What isn’t too wholesome is what’s going on in the Netherworld. Ever-scummy bio-exorcist Beetlejuice isn’t having much luck with his favorite pastime of haunting Lydia, appearing to her for only a split-second at a time, which makes her question her sanity. He’s being haunted himself by his ex-wife Delores (Monica Bellucci). The two have a tumultuous history, having killed one another in their human forms. Now she’s back in his (after)life and she wants… to suck out his soul, I think. Or maybe she wants to remarry him? Or use him for a demonic ritual? Like its predecessor, this movie has a problem establishing motivations. Her inventive introduction in a scene where she fixes her own dismemberment is supposed to compensate for a lack of character development. Also underdeveloped is Willem Dafoe as Wolf Jackson, an actor who played detectives in his lifetime before transitioning to a career as an actual detective in the afterlife. Sometimes he gets his roles and his job mixed up. Great idea for a character, but the movie never quite knows how to work him into the story.
Twists and turns wind toward a wedding between Lydia and Rory that Beetlejuice wants to crash. Poor Lydia just wants to keep her family alive and Beetlejuice out of her life, but of course things can’t be that simple. She has to go through an ordeal filled with demonic babies, a half-devoured-by-fish ex-husband (not to be confused with her half-devoured-by-fish father), a literal Soul Train, and another forced musical number that wants to outdo the “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” sequence from the original.
Like the original “Beetlejuice,” I like the creativity and humor on display here, but I don’t like that the script is full of holes (and not just of the “afterlife rules are random” variety) and plot threads that go nowhere. What helps is that in this movie, the three generations of women that serve as protagonists are ultimately more loving and supportive than the characters in the original. In fact, it helps so much that, unlike its predecessor, I will recommend this movie. I’ll even look forward to the inevitable third installment, as I seriously doubt that a franchise obsessed with saying a character’s name three times is going to stop at two.
Grade: B-
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is rated PG-13 for violent content, macabre and bloody images, strong language, some suggestive material and brief drug use. Its running time is 105 minutes.
Contact Bob Garver at rrg251@nyu.edu.
