“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (2024) Review
Written by Victor DeBonis
I was probably 6 or 7 years old when I first discovered “Beetlejuice.” Nickelodeon was my most-watched channel, and, back in the day, it would show reruns of animated shows from other cable channels that weren’t around for too long but were popular enough. The “Beetlejuice” cartoon was one of those. While I wasn’t laughing out loud at every episode, I admired the zaniness and weird designs from the underworld, and the oddball in me connected with the Goth outsider character of animated Lydia.
And, of course, the animated series has one of the most amazing intros ever made. A huge grin sprouts on my face from simply witnessing the mad rush of insanity and artistic creativity to kick off this descent into weirdness and dark silliness. It’d be a stretch to call it my favorite series I watched at that time, but my younger self dug it for the unabashedly odd thing it was.
Not too long after that, my brother found the live-action 1988 movie that inspired the show from our local Blockbuster, and I was eager to see how the film was and how it related to the show. I was simultaneously amazed and stunned by the level of eeriness and aggressive humor a movie, which would eventually result in a kids’ cartoon and was marketed greatly towards family audiences, could contain.
My 7-year-old self almost didn’t believe the innocent couple drowning at the start of the film. Those Claymation sandworms initially creeped me out (I found some clay-animated works charming and some terrifying, back then), but I quickly grew to admire the successful blending of these animated monsters with the live-action heroes trying to survive.
And, I also loved Michael Keaton gleefully stepping into the rusty suit and shoes and the fast pace of his speaking and his ability to pop up in one spot and swing to another to dupe those who were overly wealthy and looked down upon others for their own selfish and greedy needs. He was a combination of Bugs Bunny and Robin Williams’ Genie if they were fierce antiheroes.
These days, I still love the original “Beetlejuice” movie for its playful moments and intense sense of humor and the combination of amazing practical effects and committed work from its actors to help bring this delightfully weird tale to life. It fell into the category of the live-action “Addams Family” and Burton’s other great works from his heyday in helping to initiate my interest in charmingly weirder stories focused on outsiders and oddballs and encouraging my interest in the bizarre and dark.
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” revives the original antihero and its world with a similar humor and form of creativity I find sorely missing in a majority of other blockbusters from the current day, and I found myself heavily grinning and chuckling from most of it.
Tim Burton returns to direct, and he borrows many of the types of filmmaking techniques we have come to recognize from him but haven’t seen from him and many other contemporary filmmakers in so long. There is some exposition in the first half to try to catch people up on what is taking place and why. While some of it is quickly spoken aloud, there are other methods also used to communicate what has occurred since the last film, such as a clay-animated segment that is surprisingly bloody towards the end and a black-and-white flashback reminiscent of the Universal 40’s monster era. In the underworld, which is further explored this time around, there are baffled-looking puppets who inhabit the new office Beetlejuice runs, while the waiting room and new train stations are lined up with actors displaying darkly hilarious wounds handled with some impressive make-up and animatronic work to highlight the often wacky and gruesome ways in which several people died.
It made the film lover in me beyond happy to witness a wealth of practical, physical effects again in an age in which computer-generated effects are still overly relied upon. To me, Burton was always up there with Jim Henson in terms of the shared love and talent for working with physical effects and creatures one could truly see and gave a charm and innovation to what one could experience on the big screen. There are some computer-generated effects here and there to be sure, and they also look good, but the practical wizardry and production design on display is vastly impressive all on its own.
Despite the passage of time between this film and the original, Michael Keaton embraces the title role with the same playfulness and wickedness without missing a beat. He can’t necessarily speak at the same rapid-fire pace, but he delivers some hilarious comebacks and terrific smirks and reactions to those he’s either trying to fool or is going against the villainy of the other person. Beetlejuice once more believes that he’s smarter and slicker than he truly is, and Keaton commits to the foolishness and deviousness of this antihero without once appearing tired or looking as though he’s trying to take a paycheck and be on his way.
Catherine O’Hara returns with a further embrace of the dumbness and unaware pompousness of her character from the previous film, and she also wins many of the biggest laughs from the movie with her baffled eyes and snide remarks to those around her. Ever the charismatic character actor, Willem Dafoe is a blast as a TV actor who once played a hardcore detective and, in the underworld, he plays a real cop who is on the trail of Beetlejuice’s deceased wife (played by Monica Belluci) and the connection of the other to it. The scenes in which we see the character’s struggles he had as a living actor and the blend of goofiness and purposefully melodramatic harshness from Dafoe brought some terrific humor on its own.
Newcomer Jenna Ortega successfully delivers her brand of rapid comebacks and heated commentary about the foolish and the world around her, but, similar to her character in the recent “Scream” movies, she also carries a wistfulness and vulnerability that makes her courage and strength resonate even further. Winona Ryder returns as an older version of Lydia and as Ortega’s mother, and he hasn’t lost her wit and courage, but she also shows a protective side and an uncertainty in knowing how to deal with her past and loss.
As much as I love the zaniness and practical presence of the underworld in this sequel, the reason I feel I might love this movie more than the original honestly traces from the dramatic scenes in the living world involving Ryder and Ortega. Ryder’s character is attempting to cope with the loss of someone she dearly loves from recent years and is struggling to feel better, personally and mentally, and connect with her daughter. And, through all of her bitter comments to others, Ortega is mourning the loss of someone she loved and was even inspired by, and she is also an outsider, due to others mocking her for having a mother who is known for encountering ghosts they don’t believe in, but is struggling to find a way to deal with her pain and is looking for a genuine connection with someone.
Ortega and Ryder are a mother and daughter who are dealing with legitimate fear and personal problems, and they are lost souls attempting to bond more and feel better but haven’t found the proper way to accomplish any of this. This movie does a great job of exploring these vulnerable yet strong women and their path to finding the home and love from each other and deal with their own conflicts, and this movie won more of my heart, due to this.
Most of my favorite Burton movies, from “Edward Scissorhands” to “Big Fish” to the 89 version of “Batman” have plenty of dark silliness but also contain moments of real humanity and a thick, bittersweet tone to accompany the sadder moments in them. The second “Beetlejuice” movie is very similar to those, and, while the sequences and deeper dive into the underworld is undoubtedly a blast, there is arguably a bigger heart in this movie than the previous one with the emotional weight it carries from the lost souls of Ortega and Ryder trying to connect with each other and deal with their own grief and past trauma.
Monica Belluci’s character feels like an afterthought and didn’t feel completely necessary to the script, and, similar to the first movie, there is a ton going on with many characters and storylines to keep track of. Fortunately, although there is a bunch to keep track of, the visual creativity, dark humor, and strong heart helped me to overlook those shortcomings and love the film I experienced. I may have to reflect on it some more, but I might possibly love this movie more than the original.
If the first film was a dark comedy with its greatest power coming from mocking the rich who abuse their power and its vicious humor and innovative effects and creativity, the second film is a partly zany, partly reflective comedy-drama that still has plenty of fun from its other world but also is a great movie about attempting to cope with loss and trauma and trying to move forward in the present after what has come from the hard moments of one’s past.
The film isn’t pitch-perfect, but I certainly loved it, and it was the first time I felt Burton was having fun and pouring a great amount of heart into making a film in years. Burton’s always been one of my favorite directors, and I’ve always been in his corner through the movies of his I loved when I first saw them as a kid to the present day and through his era until this point in which he was not doing great work and was trying to get his voice to shine through the current cinematic period of today. This movie wisely doesn’t try to do what so many legacy sequels/reboots does and tries to remind you over and over again that the previous film existed. Instead, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” adds more to the world and story from before and contains great sincerity and soul without losing track of its legitimate edge and dark sense of fun.
It’s showtime….to a great film and one of Burton’s best films in years.
Grade: A-