‘I’ ON CULTURE
As a fan of Tim Burton, I was excited about Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, a sequel made 36 years after the original. That original movie was mind-blowing and fun, and I hoped this new one would be the same. Did it measure up? Well, almost. The original’s story was simple: nice married couple die in accident and become ghosts in their own house, then a weird, nasty family movies in, and they go to the demon Betelgeuse to get rid of the people — and the fun ensues. That’s it. The new film has a lot more plot, and the demon is in many ways just a supporting player.
Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder, yes, the same one who played the part many years ago) is now the host of a talk show about the supernatural. She finds out from Delia, her stepmother, (Catherine O’Hara) that her father has died. The two women, along with Lydia’s boyfriend and producer Rory (Justin Theroux) go back to the old town, picking up Lydia’s estranged daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) along the way. Astrid is still angry that her parents divorced and her father, it is explained, disappeared in the Amazon. Rory proposes, Lydia accepts, and Astrid runs off, where she meets Jeremy (Arthur Conti), seemingly the boy of her dreams. But he is a ghost who plans to betray her and get back to the living using her as a sacrifice. Notice anything? Much plot, and no titular demon.
But Lydia finds out about Astrid’s problems and calls on (guess who?) Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) to help, agreeing to marry the demon in return. And then things get crazy. We also meet Beetlejuice’s ex-wife Delores (Monica Bellucci), and things get even freakier. And even after a more or less happy ending, there’s a bit more with vampires.
The plot is convoluted yet it works pretty well. Things move fast, perhaps a bit too fast, with all the plot twists. Burton is a really good director and keeps us both interested and amused, but things don’t really get wild until about an hour into the movie — and that’s a long time waiting for a payout. Added to that, a few of the twists were a bit too pat. But these are minor nits. Just having a comedy these days is worth a lot. Having one where you can really laugh raised it even higher. And having at least a trace of originality even more.
The cast is uniformly excellent. It was nice to see some of the originals back. Keaton, of course, is brilliant in what may be his signature role among many. He is incredibly politically incorrect, a pleasure in these days where it seems every part has to be crafted not to offend. To put it simply, his part is to be offensive! And he does it so well. Ryder is also really good. No longer the whacked out little girl trying to survive weird parents, she is a tigress fighting to save her daughter. O’Hara again is charming and gets to do some real emoting. Theroux plays his part well, and I thought Conti did really well in his pivotal, if relatively small, role. Bellucci was a standout, however. She was a force to be reckoned with, using a great comic touch as a witch who had quite a murderous past with her ex.
And, yes, they used the song “Banana Boat (Day-O)” in the movie. How could they not? But there was other music as well. One of my favorites, “MacArthur Park,” was there. And the special effects were, in this case, special. There was not that much really new, since a lot of them had been used in the first movie years ago but, after all, these came from the mind of Burton and were not simply some computer-generated mush that we are accustomed to. That increased the impact.
This is not a stunning original like the first one, made more than a generation ago. That had the advantage of being entirely new and startlingly different. Here, Burton creates a complex story and used the demon mainly as a plot twist. But the main story is about the family love between the three generations of Deetz women.
I enjoyed it. It is better than other recent films, and it is a comedy. And watching Keaton mug his way through ridiculous situations is still lots of fun. A nice film, an oasis in this desert of this year’s movies.