By Lisa Rivas-Chavez
Image by Warner Bros
For the record, let me start with the fact that I have never been a fan of Hollywood cashing in on easy sequels.
You’ve seen it. They’re the sequels that are made years after their original, solely for cashing in on their nostalgic audience. Disney is notoriously guilty of this — think ”Finding Dory” and “The Incredibles 2.”
But when “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” announced, I had a semblance of hope. Afterall, the original cast was returning! The trailers looked funny! And Jenna Ortega being cast as Lydia Deetz’s daughter surely could only be a good sign! Who cares that it’s been 36 years since the original! Joy and whimsy!
Reader, I was so, so wrong.
HEAVY SPOILERS BELOW FOR “BEETLEJUICE, BEETLEJUICE.”
“Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice” follows Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) in her adulthood. She’s busy, juggling her ghost hunting show, a new boyfriend, her angsty eco-warrior daughter, and (to top it all off!) the death of her father. And so, Lydia, her boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux), her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega), and her step-mom Delia (Catherine O’Hara) all return to the Winter River home, ready to mourn him.
Seems okay, right?
Simultaneously, two different plot arcs are kicked off. In one, we meet up with Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), and find out he’s being hunted down by his bitter ex-wife, Delores (Monica Bellucci), who is a soul-stealing witch.
I know what you’re thinking. “A soul-sucking witch sounds cool,” or perhaps even “Wow, she seems like a scary antagonist.”
Reader, let me tell you, she does nothing to advance the plot and the second she reunites with Beetlejuice, she’s eaten by a sandworm. Her biggest impact on the story is a two-minute sequence of her character stitching herself together, but… well, we’ll get to the effects later.
Alright, let’s look at plot two. Willem Dafoe is here — and I don’t include his character name because he kind of didn’t have a character. He just kinda riffs and throws coffee cups around. He’s some sort of police man, actor, whatever. Yeah, his plot falls flat too.
Okay, so the two side plots that we dedicate 40 percent of our screen time to are bad. How’s the main plot doing?
Bad.
It doesn’t help that most of the main characters are incredibly flat. Lydia’s iconic slick, goth personality has been replaced with a standard neurotic white woman. I get it, Beetlejuice gave her trauma, but I did not believe the same girl who was fine with it in the first movie is suddenly deathly afraid of him now. Astrid is given no personality other than “millennial writing rebellious Gen Z kid.” God, she has a picture of herself and her dad at a protest framed on her desk. Be more subtle.
The crux of the main plot relies on their tense relationship. Astrid is mad at how Lydia has never grieved Astrid’s father after his passing. Lydia doesn’t know how to apologize. But, to put it bluntly, they have issues for two-thirds of the movie and refuse to trust each other until they’re sat down and literally told to behave. (They immediately look at each other, understand all their wrong-doings, and instantly get along and love each other again.).
Lydia and Astrid also have drama with their respective love interests. And both their respective partners are killed the second they start being evil. Cool!
The rest of the characters are alright. Beetlejuice and Delia are the funniest parts of the movie (thank you Keaton and O’Hara, our heroes). Even if Delia is given a weirdly heavy arc skewed towards Jeffrey Jones, who honestly shouldn’t have been included in the movie at all, let alone had his face blasted on the screen several times.
There are other issues in the movie. The effects are odd — while all the practical effects look great, everything that looked digital just looked strange. It was trying to look like stop motion, but in my opinion it never worked (it didn’t help that again, the practical effects were great). And that’s not even mentioning being taken out of the aesthetic every five minutes by the Tesla car that they kept shoving onto the screen. They would not drive a Tesla!
Look, long story short, if you want to see “Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice,” I can’t stop you. But as a very mild “Beetlejuice” fan, I also can’t in good conscience recommend it. Go watch literally anything else worthwhile. “The Wild Robot” is in theaters Sept. 27. Use your money wisely and let’s NOT manifest Beetlejuice times three!