Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. How I had waited for this day to come. How I adore the pure, campy, ghoulish sauce of the original, and how excited I was for a new entry in the series. Was it all I wanted it to be? Bluntly, no. But did I have fun? Absolutely. Spoilers ahead - you've been warned.

Right off the bat, I really did not understand the claymation sequence that showed us Charles Deetz's death - I understand from a practical perspective that Jeffrey Jones doesn't appear in this film but we may as well have just been told what happened. It felt like something a fan might have made to depict the plot point in a style reminiscent of Beetlejuice's visual effects rather than something coming from an actual entry by Burton.

Similarly, Monica Bellucci's intro sequence, whilst stylish, gory, and fun in a vacuum, is quite out of place in the overall scope of the film. It's indicative of two of my larger issues with this sequel.

Firstly, many of the mic drops are extremely jarring and, frankly, not very well mixed. They come out of nowhere, the songs just don't fit/don't work with the scenes and make them seem tacky, and they're MUCH too loud.

Secondly, what are we even doing with Monica Bellucci's character? This is no hate to the actress - she does what she can with the little she's given - but if you'd pulled me out of the cinema and put a gun to my head, I would not have been able to save my life by telling you her character's name (it's Delores). It's just a waste. One plot thread too many, I think - a good character that could have been interesting in a third outing, or as the centrepiece for this one, but instead just ends up feeling wasted and like an afterthought.

Jenna Ortega is, as usual, great, but I think it's time for her to move on from playing teenage roles. We've done the whole moody, gothic, dark academia teen in Wednesday, and Astrid Deetz is much the same. Ortega does well with what she's given, but what she's given isn't great (a running theme), and as her public celebrity continues to rise I find that the combination of how eloquent and expressive she is in interviews and her more mature roles in films like Miller's Girl, X, and the Scream franchise make watching her play yet another sulking teen a bit jarring.

Overall the blocking is decent, and there are some moments where it's quite nice (at Astrid's school with nosey peers peeking out of windows; when Astrid cycles off in the periphery of a wide of the house following an argument with Lydia; the Soul Train sequence(s)). The cinematography is also at its best in these moments of strong blocking, but especially in the real world can often be quite bland, if not outright weak.

The world of the living is definitely the weakest part of this film. Dialogue between Arthur Conti's Jeremy Frazier and Ortega's Astrid Deetz feels forced, cliché, and Netflix drama-esque (this isn't a compliment). Honestly, pre-reveals Conti's character is bones held together by poor clichés. Perhaps it's intentional, he's meant to lean into these stereotypes in order to charm Astrid, but even if the lacklustre writing is intentional, it isn't entertaining - it's eye-rolling. It also doesn't help the case that the plot twists here are - to be kind - predictable.

I can't help but feel that Bellucci's Delores and Conti's Jeremy are at odds, jostling for screen time and to be the central villain of the picture. The result is too much setup (it's over an hour before it feels like the film actually gets moving) and too little payoff. I understand what the goal was here, creating a situation whereby there are lots of moving pieces that converge into a climactic finale, but it's half-baked and dissatisfying. Nothing is set up properly, because despite the fact that too much time is taken setting up, there's still too much to set up - what we get is chopped up, disjointed, and shallow.

That being said, the ending wedding/climax sequence is great to watch, pure Beetlejuice sauce, but Burton could have easily, and by all accounts should have, saved Bellucci's soul-sucking fiendess for a third instalment. Seriously, it's a great climax, it gave me everything I want from a Beetlejuice film, but how Bellucci exits, and the speed at which that exit comes was just wasteful. It was as though her character had been forgotten about and made a brief appearance just so that plot point could be tied up in record time. The same can be said for Conti's exit earlier in the film. They're both forced out rather rapidly and unsatisfyingly to allow for Keaton's Beetlejuice to take centre stage as the villain once more.

Back to the positives. As in the first film, the afterlife is a highlight. Perfectly campy, charming, and funny, yet still just gruesome enough to feel fitting. Burton and co. nail the set design, costuming, and makeup once more and this is when the film is at its strongest. Really, the creative teams have outdone themselves here, and it cannot be overstated how crucial their work is to the best parts of this film in an era of fixing things in post with unneeded CGI.

Despite the fact that he's essentially dangled in front of us like the proverbial carrot for close to half of the film, when Keaton's Beetlejuice is actually unleashed upon the Deetz's and the world of the living as a consequential factor, the star once again delivers. I physically cannot imagine anyone else in this role, and I think Keaton shines here, once more proving himself as one of the most underrated actors alive.

That magic campy sauce, or rather juice, is still around in Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice in parts, but is far from loose. As previously mentioned, the Soul Train sequences are a favourite of mine but I wish they had been explored with a little more depth and care. Willem Dafoe's lifetime cop actor turned actual afterlife detective is so good, and he stole my attention every time he was on the screen, but again just did not get that much screen time in amongst everything else Burton is trying to cram in here.

Justin Theroux is a highlight as Lydia Deetz's slimy manager/boyfriend Rory. He's perfectly off-putting, snarky, pseudo-emotionally intelligent, pseudo-feminist, and oozes insincerity in a way that all of the characters (besides Lydia), and indeed we as the audience, see and instantly despise. He's great at being just the worst, and the character of Rory is fantastic for giving the audience a walking, talking embodiment for how badly traumatised Lydia has been by her previous encounter with Beetlejuice, and how far she has fallen - from the back-chatting goth teen who battled that demon to the paranoid, unconfident parent who falls for Rory's obvious controlling and manipulative tendencies.

Time to stop beating around the bush. I like Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. I laughed, I had fun. I marvelled at the costuming, set design, and makeup. There were some shining moments that were a return to form, but something is just off. It's common knowledge how hard it is to make a good sequel, and the more iconic the original the harder that becomes, so it was always going to be a mammoth task. I think there's something to be said here for the absence of the Maitlands. The confusion that they brought to the original really helped it out - the audience were discovering the strange and confusing rules of the afterlife alongside them, but here everything feels like a known factor, and we aren't really given anything new to sink our teeth into.

I feel as though Winona Ryder's Lydia is indicative of the film as a whole - Ryder is good, but Lydia as a character is a shell of her former self - both intentionally, but also in a wider sense to the film's detriment.

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice ends up feeling like a parody of its predecessor. It's wearing the black and white striped suit, but its soul has been sucked away. A script this mediocre could've done with an exorcism in pre-production, and even the best efforts of a good cast and some pulpy returns to form can't turn cliché slop into campy magic. We seem set up for another sequel, so perhaps the third time will be the charm, but Burton and co. will need to take a long look at what hasn't worked here if they do, or perhaps call for some outside help if they seek to make Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetle-