I want to get two things about "Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice" across. First, it follows the usual template of one of these completely unnecessary sequels that happen decades after the original. When it's not retreading old bits and playing the greatest hits, it's juggling way too many half-finished ideas and subplots. The story is a mess, the characters are creaky, and "Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice" doesn't hold a candle to the original. However, the movie is still entertaining as hell, and the most its fun I've had with any Tim Burton project in a while.
Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) grew up to be the host of a spooky reality show about hauntings, much to the consternation of her teenage daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) who doesn't believe in ghosts. After Lydia's father dies, Lydia, her stepmother Delia (Catherine O'Hara), and Astrid return to the old house to settle affairs and hold the funeral. Lydia's scummy boyfriend and producer Rory (Justin Theroux) tags along, hoping to manipulate her into tying the knot. The demon Betegeuse (Michael Keaton) is thinking the same thing, re-emerging from the Netherworld to pursue Lydia again. This time there's a ticking clock in the form of Delores (Monica Belluci), Betegeuse's murderous, soul-sucking ex-wife, who wants him back. Also in the mix are Willem Defoe as a Netherworld detective who used to be a actor, Arthur Conti as Astrid's local love interest with nefarious intentions, Danny DeVito as an undead janitor, and Nick Kellington as Bob the zombie. Jeffrey Jones does not appear in this movie to reprise his role as the deceased Charles Deetz, but Charles does play a part in the story. Er, part of him plays a part.
If you're watching "Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice" for some kind of coherent story, good luck. Most of the plot revolves around Lydia, and as much as I love her, Winona Ryder is not the strongest actress and Lydia isn't a very interesting character this time out. However, if you watch it for the vibes and the kitsch and Tim Burton proving he can still be funny, you won't be disappointed. So much of the film boils down to Burton getting anarchic and letting his inner child run wild again. We get animated sequences with good, old-fashioned stop motion animation. We get an icky Netherworld populated by morbid walking visual gags, including all of Betegeuse's co-workers being those dudes with shrunken heads. There's a minute or two of Mario Bava homage. There's a climactic musical sequence, set to Donna Summer's "MacArthur Park," that goes on for way too long. The Soul Train that ferries the dead to the Great Beyond is, of course, an extended "Soul Train" joke. Many of the callbacks don't need to be there - the opening sequence is a direct lift from the original "Beetlejuice," and "Day-O" is shoehorned into the film in the most inelegant way possible - but there aren't that many to worry about.
Even if the filmmakers don't quite know what to do with them, I love seeing Willem Dafoe get a chance to ham it up as a detective who needs cue cards for his hardboiled speeches, and Monica Bellucci stapling her scattered limbs back together. Dependable Catherine O'Hara is still playing Delia as the artsy kook who will never compromise on her vision - but did learn to love her weird stepkid. I don't feel like I got enough of Michael Keaton, but that was true of the original movie too, where Betelegeuse wasn't actually onscreen for very long. We get some more backstory for him here, but wisely not too much. Keaton's best scenes are where he's being the nasty funhouse freak, terrorizing the mortals and oozing used car salesman smarm.
The art direction is epic stuff, and I love that it's so tactile and gooey. Does anyone else ever get nostalgic for good splatter? I'm sure there's a lot of invisible CGI involved here, but there's also way more practical props and costumes and foam-rubber everywhere, to really make it feel like the '80s again. Looking at the budget figures, none of this cost very much, but it doesn't feel like they cheaped out on the production at all. To the contrary, watching Tim Burton get back to his roots playing with puppets and prosthetics is an absolute joy. After years of Burton doing mediocre Disney films, it's such a relief to find out he's still got this kind of silly, sloppy Halloween hijink-fest in him.
---
No comments:
Post a Comment