Mirror Mirror
Tim Burton’s 35-year+ sequel to his breakout hit is his best film in years. That’s not hard.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Director: Tim Burton • Writers: Alfred Gough, Miles Millar
Starring: Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega, Catherine O’Hara, Monica Bellucci
USA • 1hr 45mins
Opens Hong Kong Sep 5 • IIB
Grade: B
I’ll admit the original Beetlejuice is better than you remember it but I’ve literally already forgotten the best parts of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice – and I left the cinema about 35 minutes ago. Tim Burton’s 40-years-later sequel (man, there’s a lot of these lately) to his breakout 1988 hit has plenty going for it for the fanpersons out there, and it’s amusing enough in the moment (once it gets past a clunky first act or so) but like so many other legacy sequels it’s just not necessary. It relies on familiar set pieces and jokes, and lets its most interesting elements slip through its fingers – specifically Monica Bellucci’s vengeful femme fatale ghost and the afterlife cop hunting her. Mr Burton, if you get Monica Bellucci in your film, please do more. But Burton stans will be pleased; it’s his best film in many, many years – seriously people, Dark Shadows? Dumbo, even if it does have Colin Farrell? – it clocks in under two hours and it’s 100% Johnny Depp-free. Instant two stars? To be fair Burton and co-writers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar stick pretty close to Betelguese’s raging incorrectness, a major faux pas in the 2020s, Michael Keaton’s return to one of his defining roles is good fun, and the jittery glee of the practical effects give Beetlejuice Beetlejuice more charm than the story demands. Plus: Bob the undead civil servant forever.
The story picks up decades later (duh), with the supernaturally gifted Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) hosting a popular ghost-chaser reality show, produced by her shady boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux). Surprisingly the moody, morbid Lydia has a daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega, leaning hard on the goth/creepy girl persona perfected by Wednesday) and a dead husband, Richard (Santiago Cabrera, Star Trek: Picard), who vanished in the Amazon rainforest in one of the film’s best gags. His death and Lydia’s inability to see him is a major source of conflict between she and Astrid. When Lydia’s father Charles also dies (and woah, does the now-problematic Jeffrey Jones get roasted), the Deetz women, including Delia (Catherine O’Hara), all return to Winter River for Delia’s art installation funeral and an impromptu wedding. Meanwhile, in limbo or whatever, Betelgeuse (Keaton) has been condemned to do paperwork for eternity, but when his ex-wife Delores (Bellucci) is re-animated she comes calling, followed by Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe), a hilariously OTT movie cop. Oh, and Astrid the Outsider meets a boy, Jeremy (Arthur Conti).
There’s a lot of story in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the vast majority of it either entirely inconsequential or shamefully underwritten. Betelgeuse and Delores’ romantic backstory has the potential to be as macabre and Burton-esque as his most singular films – Ed Wood, Corpse Bride – but Bellucci disappears for long stretches leaving us to watch Ryder as the Try Hard Mom (admittedly endearing) and Ortega do her snarky teen with daddy issues thing. The end result is a film that plays as if there were several working scripts, many ideas (supposedly true on both counts) and no one with the stones to cut a few threads. And the Soul Train has to go. Just. No.
As was the case in Beetlejuice, Betelgeuse isn’t really the main character, and once again Keaton shows up to do his thing for maybe 20 minutes of total screen time. Most offensive is how the script hand-waves the absence of the Maitlands (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis don’t even get image cameos), and aims more for cheap duplication rather than fresh ideas. Danny Elfman’s score is as perky as ever but the chestnut sing-along, this time to Richard Harris’s fabulously histrionic “MacArthur Park”, feels flat when compared to the shock-haunt of “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)”. The sequence demonstrates the double edged-sword constantly hovering over the legacy sequel: Absence makes the heart grow fonder but familiarity breeds contempt. — DEK