Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: The BRWC Review

9th September 2024

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: The BRWC Review. By Christopher Patterson.

The Biggest Disappointment in a While, or, in other words, An Impressive Waste of A Thing Called Effort and Time In Just About Everything But The Custom Design and Effects

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a film I am surprised was made. I remember when I was a kid hearing it was being made, and now it’s here. It’s here. I don’t know, but just saying that feels like the world is moving right now just on impact of that statement. They did it. They made a sequel. Then comes the other part. The almost harder part. Was it actually good, though? Or whatever. Burton films, after the 90s, really are hit or miss, and this film, sadly, only adds to that. It has Burton’s visual effects at, nearly, their best; I’ll give him that, but as a whole, the writing, especially, is not just terrible but shockingly purly putrid and just dreadful since you see what they attempted and how they failed so horribly at the term…. Umm… Ahaha… Remembered it: succeeding. Here it is, a review of Beetlejuice’s long-awaited sequel. “Beware ye who enter here” (Dante), or just don’t even enter since, being for real, the film isn’t worth even all this buildup. And that’s just sad.

To start, let’s get into the story. So, to shorten it by a lot, probably twenty-six pages to be exact from how convoluted this film’s plot is, (I feel bad for anyone who had to write a summary of this film to be honest since..um…) this is a family film. While the original was also a family film, and its heart was directly placed there, right with the spectacular visuals, it was also a bit more spread out in its thematic purpose. Here, though, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is pretty blunt and also somewhat scattered into a million pieces with its plot. So we see Lydia, now old and a fake seer of ghosts for the public for some reason, with someone who is using her, and her daughter also hates her alot. She’s also lost her previous husband, which has affected her daughter, and her dad’s dead and her stepmom and her are still arguing a lot but now her Astrid, for like one scene, says something around the lines of Lydia being a grownup and not an annoying goth anymore which… I mean, that’s called growing up but okay. Also, Delores, Beetlejuice wife, is out to kill him and a detective is also out on this case. Almost forgot, Astrid has this guy she hangs out with who turns out to be dead and super crazy and tries to replace her life with his and also Astrid’s father is in the dead world and they met up with him trying to help her also Emily dies and now she has to come to terms with that and a couple dozen other things I forgot to mention. Oh yeah, Lydia, from what I can recall, makes a promise to Beetlejuice to help save Astrid.

Caught all that? To be frank, it does try to spread out and be organized. It just fails horribly. But, nonetheless, from this, one thing is clear: this is a family matter. You can see the outline here though. While this is not bad on its own, it’s moreover how it’s all written.

While I usually praise Burton’s films writing for not being usually the worst thing ever, but here it really is just the worst thing about the film and makes you roll your eyes. This plot outline is convoluted and yet also kind of generic and feels brainstormed in two minutes, to be frank. For instance, wouldn’t it be more interesting if it was a story that didn’t copy the original film sort of like most sequels, remakes, or reboots that take forever and how about doing something actually unique without trying too much at once? Like what if you took the mother and daughter relationship and just made that the whole film and not even have Beetlejuice in it so you could hone in on that. Or if you wanted Beetlejuice, do something actually unique and I don’t know, simple yet explosive and not what the original film felt as though it purposefully avoided: too much at once.

The biggest issue, frankly, with this sequel is that it has no restraint. What made Burton’s opus work so well was that not all the cards were shown. The Neitherworld, when we saw it, was forbidding, and yes, a bit funny, but still creepy. That was the power of it.

Flanderization is when a work is a sole characteristic of a character and becomes their whole personality, or, in this case, when a sequel takes one aspect of what made the original film work and makes it the entire sequel. Then you get a pretty terrible film. Bingo. If I had to give my favorite example, it’s how, again, the Neitherworld seemed so mysterious and so very interesting with all these questions from the first film you could have and how this film almost tore that up by either making answers, which ruins everything, or by expanding the world to a point it feels less mysterious.

To be frank, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a mediocre film. Though, as a sequel, to be more specific, it is a garbage and utterly dog water sequel. On its own, it has a solid, if albeit all over the place, entirely too much at once, and not focused, plot that comes together averagely. Well…until the horrible ending, but what really keeps it down is its heart and balance (in two ways).

Firstly, the ending, spoiler alert, ends with Lydia married to Beetlejuice. Could it be a dream? Yes. But still, on its own, this moment ruins the entire film for me. It makes the wholesome marriage and getting on with your life theme seem spit at for a quick joke when you know a sequel if it ever comes will be long later and probably not by Burton himself. In a way, this ending is a rejection of the first film.

In some ways, this film sticks out more than the original film with its heart, specifically, just being out there. And while I can see this, the simple issue is that the first film was constrained and never was too blunt and unsubtle. Yes, it could be over the top and all, but it was about how death can hurt people and moving on and enjoying life. Our leads died horribly and now are stuck, seemingly, in a house forever, and some family just takes their house. Yet, though all of that, Burton was able to show, in my eyes, how despite life feeling pointless sometimes and we all die, yes, enjoy life on your own terms and be happy for the sake of it. And that felt so good. This shined even better with the parental relationship the Maitland’s had with Lydia and how they saved her from being married to Beetlejuice. It was a creative playground bursting with a heart in the right place. Now, in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Lydia, if we take it not as a dream, is married to Beetlejuice.

And also back to Lydia marrying Beetlejuice; if you know anything about this franchise, you know why this is such a terrible choice. Rather than giving her agency and respecting Lydia, and due to the age gap, the ending feels like a slap in the face to all that and says it doesn’t care at all. Which just ruins absolutely everything. Like a house itself, or in this case the entire film, just exploding and getting caught on fire and celebrating at that.

By comparison, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice feels derivative of the original plot rather than showing the cycle of family issues it seemingly intends to with Lydia, like her mother-in-law before, struggling to be a mother to her daughter. But it feels lazy. Lydia is like 40 now and still feels like the writers aren’t really trying; moreover, it feels like the writing is 80-year-olds who haven’t seen real parental relationships.

The humor, this time around, is less laugh out loud funny and more rolling your eyes oh my god. It’s simply humor for audiences who grew up on Beetlejuice when it came out. When it came out, oh, just 36 years ago. Not for those who were born, I don’t know, later. And it shows hard. Even Ortega’s dialogue feels written by a 95-year-old and lacking any closeness to the word known as.. Umm.. “realism.”.

The major, and I do mean major, savior of this trash fire is Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice. It really is a film where he carries practically every scene on his own for the entire runtime. But even his character can’t be saved from the film, kind of ruining him. Thanks to things like phones existing and this taking place probably now, the film feels highly unrealistic or cringe if I had another additional word to describe it. Like how can Beetlejuice’s friends just walk around town and nobody gives much thought, even if it’s Halloween, and couldn’t someone, I don’t know, show the world that ghosts exist now with, I don’t know, a phone? In other words, the mystique feels broken now.

Before, it worked since everything was more simple. Beetlejuice never left the house, making it feel more contained and possibly scarier. There was nowhere really to go, and nobody except our cast of our characters noticed the supernatural. Now, the whole town knows. And the entire social media world. In turn, it feels like Burton is raising the stakes, but in reality he just makes Beetlejuice less of a scary villain and more like an eye-rolling, really cringe-worthy one. Where before it felt managed, where he was terrifying but also humorous. Now he’s just cringe like a old person trying to be cool to the new generation or showing the new generation how it was done in your time but instead coming off as so cringe.

Another issue I have is not having the Maitfields even mentioned much. And they are now really only used as a quick reminder they are not here since they passed on just in time for when we get the sequel. I heard its due to age and probably having to recast and ok, but also Michael Keaton’s Beeltejuice looks nearly thirty-six years older, so…..

The one thing I will give this film is the set and custom design is truly wicked. Like, the world feels like the world from thirty-six years ago, just thirty-six years later, and more money.

Though, if the poor writing stood out so much, it would have to be with Jenna Ortega’s character Astrid. Astrid’s character is probably the worst-written character out of everyone. She is the new Lydia only just without any of the personality, humor, and wittiness to keep a scene even halfway interesting. In other words, the Lydia wannabe. This is not due to Ortega, though, who does an immaculate job with what she’s given, but due to just the truly awful writing presented every five seconds she is on screen that makes each scene with her more boring than the last and more eye rolling.

VERDICT

Overall, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a film that feels thirty-six years too late, and it’s simply too atrocious writing is a prime example of that.

2/5

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