Tag: Film re

Rating 12a
Length 1h44
Release 06.09.2024
Director Tim Burton
About Three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River after an unexpected family tragedy. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia’s life soon gets turned upside down when her rebellious teenage daughter discovers a mysterious portal to the afterlife. When someone says Beetlejuice’s name three times, the mischievous demon gleefully returns to unleash his very own brand of mayhem.
Moon: Full Moon spotted during Beetlejuice’s backstory about an hour in.
Where to Watch: Still at cinemas nationwide
Trailer:

Trick

• I assumed it was the notoriety surrounding Jeffrey Jones that saw his character, Charles, meet his demise. It is sad, then, how much his likeness was used throughout the film. Often, a disgraced actor’s character is done away with sans pomp and ceremony. So I am surprised that his image is shown on his grave… stone?
  It was one thing to show his death through stop motion. Hell, I quite liked it and thought it was a novel way to get past not casting him. However, that should have been it. No headless character popping up and certainly no photos of him at all. It then begs the question; is Jones still getting paid for this instalment?
  Given that Jones is not imprisoned, it all feels very bad faith and bad taste to involve the character so heavily.
• On a similar note, Santiago Cabera’s Richard is underused. Many of the scenes involving Charles, could have been replaced with Richard and reducing the audience ick from Charles and giving Richard the room to develop his character.
• I could tell Beetlejuice was Michael Keaton this time around. It’s not like I didn’t know who Michael Keaton was when I watched the original Beetlejuice; I’d seen Batman. However, much like James Spader in Mannequin, I really struggled to see Keaton in the role, he was so involved and invested.
  Now, that’s not to say he wasn’t invested this time. It’s just that it very much felt like Michael Keaton playing Beetlejuice.
• I wanted to love Jenna Ortega as Astrid. On one level I did. She is the perfect daughter for Winona Ryder’s Lydia. My issue is passing on the conflict from Delia and Lydia to Lydia and Astrid.
  Astrid being obsessed with death on the one hand, but also not believing Lydia and her past does not work for me. Something needs to change within the conflict, or they need to be on the same page from the start. Think Gilmore Girls and the Gilmore matriarch. Don’t get me wrong, the conflict works narratively. However, it fails because you’ve created a carbon copy of Lydia in Astrid.
• The lip-sync overwhelm. Loved the synching to Brian Adams however the film was trying to recapture the magic of the original scenes and, in doing so, comes across a little too try-hard. The worst, for me, was the wedding ceremony dance/sync-along. It felt too forced and tired.
• We get it Burton, you have a type. Please stop casting your current beau in your work. Yes Monica Belluchi is a goddess. Does she fit the role well? Eh! I personally would have preferred someone else, someone who was not so ethereal.

Treat

• As a sequel with an extended length of time between, and upon first watch, I really enjoyed being back in this world. The colours and the contrast of the living and the dead. It all provides such a beautiful and quirky comfort. There’s a story that was legitimate and worth telling, the characters still feel the same and not like the actors have forgotten everything that made them great.
• Catherine O’Hara is delightful and everything I remembered of Delia Deetz. From the moment we see her in the art installation, I remembered why I’ve always longed for a sequel.
  What I loved most of all, was that she was still the quirky woman I remembered, but she’d embraced that part of herself and the medicated harshness was gone from her character.
• It’s funny, it’s charming and it attempts to throw you off guard. How successful it is with that, I guess it how good you are at reading films.
• Bob!
• It is a self contained story. Yes, there may be a sequel down the line, however there doesn’t need to be one. It leaves you fulfilled, at least it did me.

Final Thoughts

It is never going to live up to the standard of the first outing, but it gives enough to satisfy anyone wanting to return to the world or those who enjoy Tim Burton’s work.