Nostalgia has been the driving force behind so many recently released films, with sequels, prequels, reboots and remakes of films we love from the past dominating cinemas in recent years. Ghost Hunters To Indiana Jones, Scream To Spider Man, Twisters To Dead PoolIt feels like today we are more desperate than ever to recreate the joy and laughter from parts of pop culture past. Rather than simply watching the original films, audiences are yearning to return to beloved characters and the unique worlds they inhabit, and wondering what they would be like today.
But these nostalgic remakes face a difficult challenge: they must try to capture the spirit of the original (which they usually fail to do) or surpass it while adding something fresh and new. This can either succeed surprisingly or fail spectacularly – unfortunately. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice falls into the latter category. While there are touches of the macabre comedy we’ve come to know and love from director Tim Burton, most of the sequel to the 1988 classic feels like being on some kind of crazy merry-go-round; it just keeps going around and around incomplete storylines, visual slapstick, and limited character development without ever getting to the emotional core.
Beetlejuice but make it Girl Power
One of the best aspects of the sequel is that it focuses on three generations of Deetz women. Winona Ryder, who starred in the original film, artfully carries Lydia Deetz’s thoughtfulness into middle age. Although she still sports her trademark shaggy hairstyle and long, black clothing, her character has evolved into someone much more anxious and distant than the young woman we once knew. She pops pills and has trouble forming a relationship with her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega). Lydia, now a psychic, hosts a television series and uses her abilities to communicate with the spirits she can see. But lately, she’s been haunted by disturbing visions of her teenage demon Betelgeuse. Lydia has lost much of the fire she had as a teenager and allows herself to be taken advantage of by her slick producer and boyfriend, played by Justin Theroux.
Lydia’s transformation from photographer to TV star seems a little out of character for her, as she’s always been such a loner and a quiet person. But people change, especially decades after the age of 16. It also allows for a cheeky meta-commentary, in which Astrid is upset about living in her mother’s shadow and wants to write her own story.
Read more: We have rated every Tim Burton film, now also Beetlejuice BeetlejuiceFrom worst to best
Jenna Ortega, with her gloomy expression, downturned mouth and wide eyes, seems to have come from a Tim Burton factory. Like her leading role in Burton’s series WednesdayJenna Ortega is the perfect addition to a new generation of anxious Beetlejuice Misfits. Similar to Lydia’s anger at her stepmother Delia in the first film, Astrid is annoyed at her mother’s psychic abilities and her job in show business. She idolizes her late father, who fought for important causes such as environmental protection.
This dynamic makes her an easy target for Jeremy, a Dostoyevsky-loving teenager who is more than he initially appears to be. This all sounds like the stuff of interesting suspense and sharply drawn characterization, but unlike previous Tim Burton films, which have a sentimentality as atmospheric as his paintings, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice relies primarily on exposition and hasty plot construction to move everything along, making the stories feel rushed and superficial. We never stay with the characters long enough to understand who they are and how they feel. When Astrid ventures into the underworld and accidentally encounters her father, it leads to a family reunion that moves far too quickly to have any emotional impact.
Catherine O’Hara returns as the melodramatic Delia, who has moved from sculpture to multimedia art, which makes for some hilarious moments, such as when she films herself trying to capture the perfect primal scream. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice The film cleverly sidesteps actor Jeffrey Jones, who played Delia’s husband Charles in the original and whose career ended in a child porn scandal, by using a stop-motion animation sequence to show how he died. The stop-motion sandworms from the original also return, preserving the cartoonish, old-fashioned aesthetic of the 1988 film, although the use of CGI muddies the film’s imagery.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice nostalgia
In his title role, Michael Keaton is appropriately wild and wacky, but he’s lost some of his bite. The film’s attempts at contemporary humor, poking fun at therapy-speak and focusing on healing from trauma and addressing the inner child, just aren’t as painful as the barbs in the original. Betelgeuse is embroiled in a plot that features Monica Bellucci as Delores – Betelgeuse’s ex-wife, who is part Morticia Addams, part Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas – A nightmare before Christmas with a stapled-together body. She looks sexy and menacing as she pursues him through the underworld, but has little else to do. Her hackneyed story is nothing more than a reason to re-enact the wedding scene at the end of the original. Beetlejuice with Lydia’s blood red dress.
Another new face is Willem Dafoe, who fits perfectly into Tim Burton’s eccentric style as Wolf Jackson, an action star who approaches his duties as a cop in the afterlife with the same cheesy enthusiasm he brought to his film roles. Oddly, I laughed more at Wolf than I did at Betelgeuse. Other jokes, like the painfully obvious, literal Soul Train and Astrid’s self-referential muttering of “I swear, the afterlife is so random,” were also unconvincing.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is more concerned with cramming references to the first film than doing anything else. A children’s choir sings “Banana Boat (Day-O)” at Charles’ funeral; there’s no earthly reason for this other than to reference the infamous scene. I understand this is a fantasy comedy, but sacrificing storytelling for obvious nostalgia bait was too much.
There is another playback scene at the end of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (and how could it be otherwise?), but Tim Burton could never have topped the calypso celebrations of the original with Harry Belefonte. Richard Harris’ long “MacArthur Park” is a wonderfully odd choice, but it also doesn’t feel earned, just thrown in for the sake of another musical number.
I may have rose-tinted glasses on for the original Beetlejuicethat I saw as a child, but Beetlejuice Beetlejuice felt like a visit to an amusement park as an adult: the rides are now worn out and clunky and you just want to get off. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is all flashing lights and bright colors, but little substance.
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