Say it once, say it twice, third time’s a charm. So: Say it once, say it a second time and all the best until the third time. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.
More than thirty-six years have passed since those now iconic words were first uttered. The story of Adam and Barbara Maitland, a married couple who die suddenly and fail to haunt their house’s new, insufferable tenants, the Deetz family, became one of the blockbusters of the year at the time, grossing over 73 million dollars. Just for comparison: At the time, the premiere Deathtrap took 83 million dollars. Beetlejuice thus became the tenth highest-grossing film of the year, according to Box Office Mojo statistics.
However, critics did not agree on what to think about the film. Reviewers across the media acknowledged that only Tim Burton’s third film lacked any story. About whether the film is funny and whether the pelmel of colorful costumes and incoherent jokes has something to it, but they had arguments.
For example, a leaf New York Times He considered Beetlejuice a “trivial spectacle” that lacked the first thing audiences expect from it: a joke. On the contrary The Hollywood Reporter calling it “adorably crazy and endlessly inventive” and not even shying away from being labeled an “original visual bonanza”. Don’t strain yourself. I googled it for you – bonanza refers to a gem deposit.
I have to lean more towards the first group of reviewers. Beetlejuice wasn’t a bonanza, it was a dud. And its sequel is a dud.
To the third of all evil
The 1980s popularity of Beetlejuice still made sense in its rough outlines. It was a colorful world full of madness in the form of striped snakes in the sand and grotesque-looking ghosts in a world that does not follow the rules of cinema. In short, Tim Burton’s universe, which the audience was just getting to know at the time. At the same time, it was a pleasant, non-confrontational and easily forgettable spectacle suitable as entertainment for Saturday evenings.
But the director offers an almost identical experience even after 36 years. Although the Maitlands have already found peace, Deetz returns to the huge house on the hill after the death of the head of the Charles family. The little gothic girl Lydia Deetz (Wynona Ryder) whom Beetlejuice wanted to marry in 1988 became a world-famous medium. Her stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara) is an unconventional artist. And Lydia’s daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) joins the famous couple, who doesn’t believe her mother sees ghosts.
And of course the bio-exorcist Betelgause (Michael Keaton) will bring some chaos to all of this. Otherwise, almost everything remains the same: the striped snakes in the Dune-style sand, the green soul behind the partition of the afterlife, Banana Boat Song even not-so-funny jokes.
Foto: Vertical Entertainment
Today, however, such an approach will no longer work. The current film world has had enough of flat films, where depth is constantly replaced by a multitude of new characters and overcrowded sets. Marvel alone produces two to three films a year after Endgame, not to mention DC Comics. And it’s not enough that a visionary like Tim Burton would be expected to find a way to make a Beetlejuice sequel fun.
But it is interesting to see how the director was aware of the biggest limitations of the original film – in the sequel Beetlejuice there is an obvious attempt at a plot. The jokes don’t quite stand on their own anymore, and some even move along in the plot. Much more work with the characters is also evident – in the sequel, the viewer has the feeling that they are sometimes thinking about the whole crazy world and not just living in it. The audience even got a sideline with the actress and Tim Burton’s partner Monica Belluci, which does not move the main story much, but at least brings a breath of new ideas.
Still, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has to fight unbearable boredom. And it succeeds thanks to a single character: Astrid Deetz, played by Jenna Ortega. She drags the new Beetlejuice behind her, just as she did two years ago in Burton’s series Wednesday (this time following the real ghost classic The Addams Family). But the difference is that Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán were able to second her then, whereas now she has no equal. And all by herself, she tries to drag the viewer through the 104 minutes of the film, which feels like two and a half hours.
When she finally succeeds, perhaps there is nothing left but to pray. And pray to all the movie gods or bio-exorcists that Tim Burton doesn’t say the name “Beetlejuice” a third time and summon another tired sequel to the eighties hit.
Film: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
Comedy / Fantasy / Horror, USA, 2024, 104 min
Screenplay: Alfred Gough, Miles Millar
Camera: Haris Zambarloukos
Hrají: Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega, Monica Bellucci, Catherine O’Hara, Justin Theroux, Willem Dafoe, Burn Gorman, Danny DeVito, Arthur Conti
