The “Juice” is Back: “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” Honest Review
(Photo courtesy of iStock by Getty Images)
Kerry Kadel | Editor-in-Chief
Warning: Slight spoilers for the film below
Beetlejuice is back and hilarious as ever. With more than twelve minutes of screentime from his role in the original film directed by Tim Burton back in 1988, Michael Keaton reprises his role as the crass, dirty, hilarious demon in the pinstripe suit. Catherine O’Hara reprises her role as the nutty and sometimes dumb witted art conceptualist and sculptor, Delia Deetz. Most importantly, Winona Ryder reprises the role of Lydia Deetz, now a single mother to her teenage daughter Astrid Deetz, played by Jenna Ortega.
Reboots and sequels to popular movies have been a controversy in the last couple of years, with many fans and movie-goers stating that all of them are money-grabbers. Disney is the largest culprit when it comes to rebooting movies, such as turning the animated classics into live-action. However, with some reboots or sequels, there comes a story to tell. A way to rewrite the original for a modern audience while keeping the heart of the characters.
With the wacky world that Tim Burton created surrounding the characters of this movie, it’s safe to say that each character remains just as lovable and laughable as they were back then. New characters that the audience meet also have this spunk of humor and lighthearted chaos.
Willem Dafoe plays Wolf Johnson, a deceased action movie actor turned lead homicide detective in the Netherworld (or Land of the Dead) after he died from doing his own action stunt with a live grenade. Hence, the special effects makeup taking up half of Dafoe’s head revealing part of his skull and brain in that iconic Burton-esque style of weird anatomy. Dafoe delivers as a hilarious, action stuntman reliving his glory days of being a movie star through in the afterlife.
Monica Bellucci stuns as the true antagonist of the film, her character hunting down Beetlejuice in order to seek revenge on him for events that took place when both characters were alive (yes, Beetlejuice was alive at one point!). Bellucci is currently in a relationship with director Tim Burton, so some say it’s no wonder she ended up being written into the film, but even if she wasn’t, she brought an evil air to the film amidst the good chaos.
Other new faces include Arthur Conti who plays a boy named Jeremy, who begins to evolve a romantic relationship with Ortega’s character, and Justin Theroux playing Rory, Lydia’s romantic partner and manager for her TV show that exploits her gift of seeing the dead.
As lovable as the characters are, new or old, there are certain disappointments with the plot. One being that there were about three different subplots going on simultaneously, and though you can keep up, it leaves you wondering why writers didn’t choose to stay on one central plot point involving certain characters. Within these multiple subplots there are smaller conflicts, such as the jagged mother-daughter relationship between Lydia and Astrid, all revolving around the death of Astrid’s father. It’s strange, how the movie can be all over the place with multiple shots of each character in different parts of their story and how they progress within the movie and then see the finale of all of them coming together in the climax.
Each subplot and conflict was solved rather quickly, with no reasonable (or in Beetlejuice’s case, wacky) explanation on behalf of the movies’ rulebook, Handbook for the Recently Deceased. Not even during the climax, while killing time with a lip-sync and dance number. Perhaps the absurdity of the plot along with its characters can be scapegoated to ignore these easily fixed subplots, but that leaves you feeling a little cheated by what the writers and Burton could’ve done to have created a better, timely wrap-up.
A part of the original movie was added into the new script for plot-related reasons, being that Beetlejuice is still after Lydia, trying to marry her in order to escape the afterlife and be a living person once again. It’s a throwback to the original movie, but having to almost witness Lydia marry a six-hundred-year-old demon again was a little tiring, which is probably why the scene incorporates a singing and dance number. However, with Beetlejuice’s humor and personality, he would most definitely try the same plan again and again, with fail after fail.
The only main characters missing from the original movie were Barbara and Adam Maitland, played by Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin; and Charles Deetz, Lydia’s father, played by Jeffrey Jones. Jones is not part of the cast due to having possession of child pornography in 2003, registering him as a sex offender, for which he garnered more trouble for when he didn’t update his status as an offender in Florida in 2004 and in California in 2010.
However, Charles Deetz does have appearances in the movie–as a dead body with his top-half being completely bitten off by a shark, a result of his untimely death explained in the beginning of the movie with Claymation, Burton’s acclaimed animated medium. The character is nothing but half a torso, waist and legs, and a disembodied voice that gurgles.
This sequel of the beloved dark comedy is not perfect, but it captures the heart of its characters from the original, what made them so loveable amidst the chaos of pinstriped demons and shrunken heads. There are many references to the original movie that fans will love, such as seeing Delia’s abstract sculptures in various parts of the movie, outfits that mimic the originals from iconic scenes, and the hilarious waiting room of the Netherworld with all its unfortunate victims trying to get their number called. It’s a wild ride of a movie that leaves you laughing and wondering what comes next, even if it does all fall a little flat at times. However, there is so much excitement centered around the film that it can’t help but just be fun.