Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
WARNER BROS
It’s been too long since Tim Burton made something worthwhile. The filmmaker has been lost for quite some time, when he began to adopt new technologies in films such as Alice in Wonderland, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, and the mortifyingly dull remake of Dumbo. And after such a risible experience working for Disney to reimagine an animated movie none of the artistic flair and soul that made its original counterpart stand the test of time, Burton thought about retiring.
But it wasn’t until making the sequel to one of his most popular films in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice that he felt reenergized, stating in an interview: “Oftentimes, when you get into Hollywood, you try to be responsible to what you’re doing with the budget and everything else but sometimes you might lose yourself a little bit. This reinforced the feeling for me that it’s important that I do what I want to do, because then everybody will benefit.”
With Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Burton gives his best film since Batman Returns, a dazzling display of immense creativity at every turn, while also tipping the hat to genre filmmakers who made a profound impact on him. The funny thing is that it never feels like an egregious homage, or pastiche. In one scene, Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) recounts the story on how he married Delores (Monica Bellucci) and inexplicably begins to speak in Italian. The movie then cuts to a black & white flashback strongly evoking the aesthetic of Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (the filmmaker eventually gets name dropped by one of the characters, thus reinforcing the tribute).
Stuff like this would be found in earlier Tim Burton works, but never in the current soulless trend he undertook since badly remaking Franklin J. Schaffner’s Planet of the Apes. Bringing himself back to the techniques and filmmakers he loved is a great first step to making all of us enjoy Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, even if it can get oftentimes muddled. For example, an incredible scene where Delores staples herself up scored to the Bee Gees’ “Tragedy” posits her as a formidable antagonist. Monica Bellucci’s facial performance is constantly imposing, and her soul-sucking of inhabitants of the afterlife keeps the famous Bio-Exorcist and actor-turned-afterlife cop Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe) on their toes.
But she doesn’t do anything beyond that. All Delores does in the film is ask “Where’s Betelgeuse?” and suck the souls of people who don’t answer. When she eventually meets her dead ex-husband during the climax, she’s quickly taken care of and never seen again. All of this buildup for a non-existent confrontation feels fairly disappointing, and one is under the impression that Bellucci starred in this simply because she is currently dating Burton and nothing more (just like when Helena Bonham Carter had a prominent role in each of Burton’s films when they were married). Of course, that’s an amazing baller move, but writers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar could’ve absolutely thrown more meat around the bone to make Delores the menacing foe its amazing introduction scene sets her up as.
Such an introductory scene like this shows us how much fun Burton’s having. He’s bringing himself back to the ways in which he loved making movies, primarily utilizing his imagination as the drive to bring to life his craziest dreams. He employs old-school techniques to create striking environments that can’t be replicated by anyone else. Jeffrey Jones can’t return because of his criminal offenses? No problem. Let’s do a Claymation flashback that explains exactly how his character, Charles Deetz, passed away, which acts as the catalyst for its plot (and then makes him sporadically show up through a headless body double).
2010 Tim Burton would do all of this in CGI, but 2024 Tim Burton brings us back to his humble beginnings, doing as much as he can practically: matte paintings, stop-motion, lived-in gothic sets that recall German expressionism, and prosthetics to represent some of the kookiest creatures living in the afterlife. It’s all fully and brightly realized through cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos’ IMAX photography, after lightly teetering in the macabre through the format with Kenneth Branagh last year in A Haunting in Venice. Colleen Atwood’s vivid costumes (a reunion with Tim Burton) and Mark Scruton’s note-perfect production design also give the movie the immediacy it desperately needs to work.
Creatively, Burton is confidently in his element. Everything fires on all cylinders, especially scenes in the afterlife that has a literal soul train taking people to The Great Beyond, while a group of people dance on Soul Train’s theme, a wedding sequence with a song-and-dance number scored with the sweet lyrics of Richard Harris’s “MacArthur Park”, acting as a musical leitmotiv with this rendition and Donna Summer’s song. The film also contains staggering puppetry with an ‘evil’ Betelgeuse baby, and callbacks to Bava, Brian De Palma, and the compositions of Pino Donaggio, to evoke the quasi-tragic path their characters are going through. Most of it works brilliantly, particularly when it focuses on Keaton’s titular character.
The 73-year-old actor hasn’t lost his comedic touch from the time he first played the character to now, and Burton thankfully gives him more screentime this time around (audiences will be surprised that Keaton is only in the original Beetlejuice for a grand total of 17 minutes). Betelgeuse has not evolved: he still wants to marry Lydia (Winona Ryder), even after thirty-six-years have passed. But after an event that causes Lydia’s daughter, Astrid (played by Jenna Ortega, the film’s weakest link), to travel to the afterlife, she will have to bargain with the Bio-Exorcist to get her daughter back, and perhaps marry him in the process.
This non-evolution is thrilling to see with Ryder’s Lydia (and Catherine O’Hara’s Delia) having evolved by the almost forty-year gap between this film and the original. Delia still believes in her art, but isn’t as self-centered as she once was, and has developed a heart to accept her stepdaughter as who she is. Their scenes are terrifically treated, with Ryder and O’Hara breathing new life into their beloved turns through immense compassion and humanity. Ryder particularly impresses with the stark confidence she has built as a ‘ghost hunter,’ while her daughter does not believe in any supernatural shenanigans until she begins to see one of her own (suffice to say this entire arc is the most predictable Burton’s been, with the audience twenty steps ahead of the screenplay, and grinds the film’s momentum to a halt).
While it’s appreciated to attempt development of the Deetzes, especially after Beetlejuice’s mile-a-minute pace, one can’t say Ortega’s turn as Astrid works. The Wednesday breakout star still has a long way to go before she gets taken seriously as an actor, typecasted in roles that box her in familiar tropes and don’t allow her to evolve and naturally showcase her talent. It’s a shame, because Ortega seems to adore cinema and is one of the few young actresses whom Ryder has worked with that has an innate knowledge of the medium. Burton does her no favors by typecasting her like this, and compared to the bravura performances given by Ryder, O’Hara, Keaton, and even Justin Theroux who’s having a total ball, the difference is complete night and day.
Astrid finds herself in a blossoming relationship with Jeremy (Arthur Conti), a one-dimensional love interest whose entire arc is spelled out in front of us as soon as he’s introduced. There are zero surprises with him, and it gets even worse when Burton attempts to make it somewhat thrilling when everything can be seen a mile away. But he’s a minor inconvenience that gets quickly resolved, immediately putting the film back in its tracks for a highly extravagant finale to remember, which strongly evokes De Palma’s Carrie and David Lynch’s fever-dreams within nightmares.
It satisfyingly concludes Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and jolts us out of our seats in excitement at what Burton will do next. There’s a bit of an asterisk on how he will treat Attack of the 50ft. Woman with Gillian Flynn, which will be his next project. If he overuses CGI and begins to create artificial landscapes, the project is doomed to fail. But if he utilizes the same primal techniques he rekindled with in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, his filmmaking (well, in this case, it’s more toymaking than anything else, but its craftsmanship is so refined that it doesn’t take long for anyone to be swayed by it) will be in the safest possible hands, and all of us can look forward to another great film from a master of the kooky and unnatural.