The New Movie of the Week: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder), the teen that could see ghosts, has grown up and is now the host of a “ghosthunters” like program called “Ghost House”.  She is estranged from her daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega) who doesn’t believe her mother can actually see the things she sees.  Astrid’s father perished in the Amazon trying to save the rain forests.  Lydia, is now dating her smarmy new age producer, Rory (Justin Theroux) and has begun seeing images of Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton), the demon ghost who tried to force her to marry him when she was a teen. While filming an episode of her television series, Lydia receives an urgent text from her stepmother and artist, Delia (Catherine O’Hara) and learns that her father, Astrid’s grandfather, has died after his plane crashed.  In the afterlife, Betelgeuse’s dead soul sucking ex-wife, Delores (Monica Bellucci) escapes her imprisonment and is on the hunt for Betelgeuse to get her revenge.  Delores is a literal “soul sucker” who can syphon the soul from ghosts, killing them for real, there is no coming back after being “soul sucked”. The head of the ghost police force, dead action movie star Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe), attempts to find Delores before she can get to Betelgeuse.  As the plot unfurls, Astrid gets in trouble and Lydia must ask Betelgeuse for help to rescue her daughter from the afterlife.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is an American fantasy comedy horror sequel following up with the characters created in the original Beetlejuice film from 1988 with the introduction of new living characters like Astrid and Rory and new dead characters like Delores and Wolf Jackson. The majority of the original cast reprises their roles with Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara all returning.  Also returning are Tim Burton as the director and Danny Elfman composing the music.  The film hit theaters on September 6, 2024 and got generally favorable reviews. As of the writing of this article, the movie has grossed $283.9 million worldwide.  When asked about doing a third film, Burton said, “Let’s do the math…it took 35 years to do this, so I’ll be over 100. But I guess it’s possible with the advent of science these days, but I don’t think so.”

The original Beetlejuice was something quite magical, it pulled all the elements of a good movie together and created something funny, original and visually stunning. The film’s plot was simple, and the writing was witty and clever with a fast-paced rhythm that kept the film exciting.  There was highbrow humor and base humor satisfying everyone.  Unfortunately, the sequel doesn’t quite recapture that spark of magic and feels like a rehash of the same movie, just 38 years later.  Michael Keaton’s Betelgeuse is just as fun and disgusting as he originally was, but he lacked that original frantic kinetic energy the made the character so memorable.  What I think really hurt the film, more than any performance, was the convolution of the many plots.  There were a lot of sub-plots all happening at once and it was hard to bring them all together which also caused some missed opportunities and made the film’s final resolution feel rushed.  Too little time is devoted to the reunion of Astrid and her father, diminishing the emotional impact it could have had.  The Delores storyline could have been interesting but was barely hit upon and felt more like background noise. The introduction of the Jeremey character played by Arthur Conti is another missed opportunity and was mainly used as a convention to get Astrid into trouble rather than a main plot focus. I liked that Tim Burton continued to use practical effects and I enjoyed the more cartoonish costumes and makeup with Wolf Jackson being a great example.  The music is excellent, and the actors all do a good job with what they are given.  Technically, there really isn’t anything wrong with this film, but it just didn’t have that “WOW” factor that I was hoping for and that the original had.  In the end, the film is entertaining, fun, and enjoyable but adds little to the original and is missing its spirit, maybe Delores sucked its soul out too soon!