Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Beetlejuice has always been one of my favorite films. Tim Burton’s early work is some of my favorite in film and I truly think he was an incredible director at some point. But that point has long since passed and I think sequels done over 2 decades after the original are desperate. They are desperate attempts at reclaiming prestige and cash. And though Jenny Ortega was an undoubtedly incredible choice I don’t think casting is enough to overcome a truly unnecessary film.

Whenever Winona Ryder speaks I hear Veronica. I know she’s known for so many other things, but her voice just has not changed at all and in my heart she will always be from Heathers.

A very grown Lydia is starting to see Beetlejuice around and she still very much sees and communicates with ghosts. Having her own TV show seems like a little much but if you can monetize something that traumatized you why not?

God William Defoe is getting so much work lately. I feel like in the last few years he has been in a dozen movies.

That Deetz blood is strong because Lydia’s daughter is so angsty. She is very much a teenager, and she is very much her mother’s daughter. She doesn’t believe in ghosts, which kind of sucks for mom since she literally sees them. But in this poor girl's defense her dad is dead and he is not one of the ghosts that Lydia sees.

I love that Tim Burton basically wrote a whole monologue for Beetlejuice that was just a love letter to his wife, that’s pretty adorable.

Astrid realizes that ghosts are real because she can see them. This boy she meets is a ghost. He apparently killed his parents and the house is known as a murder house. Okay so now this plot is centering around Astrid helping this dude return to the land of the living in exchange for seeing her father again. She goes into the underworld, other side whatever with this dude.

I will say that I love the design, it is super Tim Burton-y. From the hallway, to the slanted waiting room, and the model of the town. Everything looks properly creepy but also a little goofy and that is the Burton way.

I think that act one probably dragged on a little bit too long. We really didn’t get to kick off the real plot until an hour in. The act structure to this is a little off. I’ve said this before but when you have a pretty tight run time, (this is only an hour and 45) then you need to be really diligent with your act structure and pacing because you don’t have any wiggle room.

The story took way too long to get going. Astrid crosses over into the underworld, Lydia calls Beetlejuice to help and Astrid ends up finding her dad. Now Lydia agreed to marry Beetlejuice. A lot happened in a short amount of time instead of letting the story breathe. Honestly we should have opened on the funeral instead of spending 20 minutes getting to it. Nothing we found out in the beginning couldn’t have been given to us during or after the funeral.

The mother daughter stuff wasn’t resolved. I mean, it was but it was super forced. There was no build up to it. And I like Jenna Ortega but her delivery on her little “I'm sorry” speech to her mom was so bad.

Everything about this film is so rushed, there wasn’t a single character arc or relationship that is properly developed. Lydia didn’t have much going on, the story seemed like it was going to center on Astrid and then it didn’t really. And then the mother-daughter relationship that should have been the focus of the film was entirely nonexistent.

Yeah…it wasn’t good. And I so desperately wanted it to be. I love Beetlejuice, but nearly every element of this film was the worst version of what it could have been. The production design was the only thing that was not only good, but great. The pacing was both slow and rushed at the same time, so congrats on that I guess. The story had potential that was entirely wasted. The act structure was horrible. I hate having to give this movie a 4/10 but that’s what it was. It had all the pieces that it needed and it just didn’t seem to know how to assemble them.