54915: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Have you ever lived in a home that has had coat after coat after coat of new paint slapped on to try and convince the inhabitants that what they're seeing every day is new and fresh and wonderful? Well, if you're not careful, then over the years the paint builds up and builds up builds up to the point where even the slightest bit of humidity means the doors swell up and lodge themselves shut, as all the normal breathing room has been taken over by layers of forgotten paint jobs. That's kind of what feels like happened in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, except the doors were all forced open, and it seems like every plot idea and character was invited in and absolutely no one was left out. The result is that a lot of great stuff made it in, as did some stuff that should've been put to use elsewhere. All told, I enjoyed Beetlejuice Beetlejuice for what it delivered, including the warning to filmmakers attached to legacy projects that sometimes less is more, and when you bring a project out of development hell, please burn some sage and do an exorcism or two to make sure you didn't bring back any hitchhikers.

What was good, and what was bad? I'll start with the goodness. Michael Keaton absolutely delivers as the titular terror. Keaton has not lost a step. He makes Betelgeuse/Beetlejuice hilarious and enjoyable to watch, even if in this film he's asked to carry some ill-advised plot lines. Winona Ryder is equally wonderful in this version of Lydia. She's no longer the winsome youth, but now an older, scarred version of herself, emotionally worn down by decades of dealing with dead people's nonsense. Catherine O'Hara FUCKING CARRIES THIS MOVIE and I don't care who knows it. From her first frame of screen time to her last, she's incredible. She mixes scene-stealing comedic chops with moments of pure tenderness and wisdom and lunacy and if there's any justice in this life she will be gab an Oscar nomination over this. 

Jenna Ortega is annoyingly fun as an angrier, more worldly version of teen Lydia, who shows us what it would've looked like if Lydia had fallen for her unearthly suitor back in the 1980s. There's not really a bad spot among the cast, with a caveat that not everyone should've been there. What else is great? The visual design elements, the incredible sets and costumes and makeup, are all on par with or exceed the original. The music is wonderful, the musical numbers are enchanting. I even enjoyed the world building Burton did with the dead world. Fun times.

Then there's the not-so-good stuff. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Willem Dafoe and Monica Bellucci have no business being in this movie. If you were to ask me a year ago, "would you cut Willem Dafoe and Monica Bellucci from a movie?" I would've said, "no, absolutely not! They're awesome and elevate everything they're in." And I would've been wrong. There's no need for them to be in this movie at all. Does Bellucci's Delores character add anything to the movie other than an excuse for Tim Burton to work through his obvious fetish for dismembered women? All she does is demystify the Betelgeuse character's origin and provide motivation for him to, I don't know, get married to Lydia for some reason? Unfortunately, knowing Betelgeuse's backstory makes him less compelling as an antogonist/anti-hero, and he was already fully motivated in his pursuit of Lydia. But I'm really happy for Burton and Bellucci (who started dating during production), and I'm glad Dafoe got (I assume) a big honkin' payday for playing a character, Wolf Jackson, who had nothing to do except pursue Delores for the entire film and be delightfully unhinged in the pursuit of justice.

Now, imagine that Burton (or an anointed protégé) were to take those two characters and make them the central dyad in a movie set in the Beetlejuice world, where Dafoe's Jackson chases Bellucci's afterlife-serial-killer Delores through the great hereafter and beyond. Put in a cameo from Ryder or Keaton, or both, schedule it for an early October release and get ready to cash some very big checks.

Something else that falls into the "why the hell did they do that" category is the handling of the "Charles Deetz Problem." Long after the release of the first film, the actor who played Charles was found to be in the possession of some truly awful photographs and has since then experienced an *ahem* career downturn. It's quite understandable that Burton wouldn't want him involved in this outing. So why, then, would they make his death the inciting incident for the whole goddamned story? Instead of forgetting about the odious actor (who we see in an animated sequence as well as in a photograph on the character's tombstone) we're forced to think about him for the entire time. If this was the deft, delicate option the producers landed on, I shudder to imagine what sort of ham-handed fuckery they decided was too dumb to move forward with.

But, still, I enjoyed the hell out of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and I suspect I'll revisit it next October, and probably every few years going forward. It was good, but with a little bit of restraint it could've been great. By focusing on Ortega and her beau from beyond (spoiler alert), Burton could've built on what made the first film so resonant–coming of age while reckoning with mortality—and explored the path not taken in the original. Maybe next time. I mean, surely there will be a Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, right?