BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE Review: The Juice Is Definitely Not Loose

Introduction

As part of my annual ‘Year in Review’ piece, I always include a couple of movies in my ‘Movies for Me’ category. Films that are not good, but which I liked anyway. Usually, I have to be in the right mood for a film like that. Or, it includes one component that strikes me so perfectly that the rest of the film becomes insignificant. I was in a fantastic mood when I screened Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. When Battleship featured a scene showing a grid being used to fire missiles at an alien ship, I cackled like a maniac. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is not a movie for me.

The best way to describe Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is: to convince Michael Keaton to put on a thirty-six-year-old costume. Throw him against a wall in Tim Burton’s house, and see what squirts out. Then do it again. And again. And again. The result is an incoherent mess of disconnected storylines with a massive side of nostalgia, and random afterlife imaginings sprinkled on top. It’s as if the writers watched the old animated Beetlejuice series and just smashed a bunch of the episodes into a big glob for this film.

Catching up with the Deetz Family

Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) is all grown up and the host of a ghost-hunting show, utilizing her ability to see the dead. She isn’t particularly happy with it, but her producer/boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux) will stop at nothing to exploit and cash in on her gift. Lydia is also a widow and mother. Her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) misses her dead father and believes Lydia is pretending to see ghosts because Lydia cannot see Astrid’s dad. If this movie focused on that plot and employed Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) as Astrid’s attempt to reunite with her father, the film might have been good. But wait…there’s more.

Beetlejuice’s centuries-dead, chopped-into-pieces, ex-wife Delores (Monica Bellucci) awakens, reassembles her body with a staple gun, then proceeds to hunt down Beetlejuice to get revenge on him for her death. Incidentally, she killed Beetlejuice (poisoned him) to, literally, suck his soul out of his body. That ability has remained intact in the afterlife.

As Delores hunts for Beetlejuice, she randomly sucks the souls out of other dead people because she’s, uh, really bad, I guess. Plus, Beetlejuice is already dead. However, we’re told that Delores can make the dead “really dead.” Woof. Also, why is Delores only just waking up now, hundreds of years later? I guess they didn’t throw Michael Keaton’s body against the wall enough times to come up with literally any answer. But wait…there’s more.

Astrid meets a boy named Jeremy (Arthur Conti) and the two quickly hit it off. After hanging out a couple of times, Jeremy kisses her and then reveals to Lydia that he is dead. Eww. He offers to take Astrid to see her father. However, he is secretly planning to steal her soul to bring himself back to life. At first glance, this seems like a way to connect this plot to Delores, but the writers do no such thing. Delores doesn’t connect to this at all, merely accidentally intersecting it with, just like all of the storylines in this film.

Fan Service

But the writers do use it as the incentive for Lydia to summon Beetlejuice to help her save Astrid. And since the primary goal of this film is fan service, it’s not the least bit surprising that Beetlejuice’s condition for helping is that Lydia marries him. It’s even less surprising that the film ends with another wedding scene.

Speaking of fan service, the film is stuffed full of it. Sandworms, the afterlife waiting room, shrunken head guys, Delia Deetz’s (Catherine O’Hara) artwork, the town model of Winter River, a real estate agent selling the Maitland house, the Maitland house, a climactic wedding scene, and even a musical number featuring a bunch of lip-syncing characters. And every last one of them falls completely flat. This is probably why Burton’s director brain decided to incorporate a bunch of pointless indulgences that also fall flat.

There is a Claymation scene depicting Charles Deetz being eaten by a shark after his plane crashes while en route to a birdwatching event. None of that is a typo. It’s Claymation because Jeffrey Jones (who played Charles) is a real-life registered sex offender. So, bringing Jones back for this film was a non-starter. Being eaten by a shark removes Charles’ head and a chunk of his torso. Thus allowing Charles to aimlessly, and facelessly, wander around the afterlife world while squirting blood all over.

Further Discussion

There is a flashback of Beetlejuice’s and Delores’ life that’s done in black and white and Spanish. There’s also an afterlife detective who is named Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe). Wolf was an actor (playing a cop) when he was alive. So now he gets to play a cop when he’s dead and he’s trying to catch Delores. Get it? There is even a “soul train” complete with dozens of disco dancers. GET! IT?!! And here’s a Danny DeVito cameo just to remind everyone that not everything in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was a bad idea.

By this point, you’re probably wondering what Beetlejuice is doing this whole time. He’s vaguely haunting Lydia. He’s running a call center with a bunch of shrunken-head guys. He leaves a flyer in the Maitland’s attic. He does a scene featuring a bunch of sight gags and a vicious Beetlejuice baby. He’s kind of hiding from Delores, but not really trying too hard. In other words, he’s doing nothing. Essentially, he’s just there to justify the title.

Conclusion

Just because this isn’t a movie for me, doesn’t mean I hated it. Hell, I wasn’t even disappointed by it. It’s exactly what I expected it to be – a lazy film drenched in nostalgia, aimed at my generation, trying to cash in on the popularity of Jenna Ortega playing another spooky character. And that isn’t to slight Ortega. She was perfectly fine, doing what she could with a half-written character. This is far more than we can say about Delores, a character so underwritten and underwhelming that Bellucci should sue for criminal negligence.

But at least O’Hara and Dafoe seemed to be having a good time. I’ll even acknowledge the handful of moments during the film that actually were good (one example: Wolf Jackson’s assistant was a delightful detail in his scenes). Not to mention Michael Keaton is injecting as much energy as a 73-year-old is capable of. This is impressive considering how many times Burton must have thrown Keaton at that wall.

Rating: Ask for thirteen dollars back and that they never make a sequel to Mr. Mom.

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