Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice: A Second Look

Believe it or not, I can still remember the first time I watched 1988's Beetlejuice. It was a Saturday morning, the VHS tape encased in clear plastic sitting on the kitchen table. I popped it in the old VCR, and before anyone else woke up, I watched a movie that would become a cultural phenomenon and staple in my life. I still watch it about once a year, sometimes around Halloween, sometimes just because. 37 years later, it still holds up, for while there have been many Tim Burton classics that have come after it, nothing before or since has been quite like Beetlejuice.

There'd been whispers, mostly just the hope of the fans, of a Beetlejuice sequel floating around for years, and when it was made official and word got out that not only Tim Burton was returning, but so was Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, and Catherine O'Hara, well, how could I not be anything less than ecstatic?

I saw Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice in the theaters on opening night (which is rare for me), and I have to admit that I left the theater slightly ... underwhelmed. While there were some really good moments in it, I thought it was sort of a mess and fell somewhat short.

So, now that it's on Netflix, I decided to give it a second look. NOTE: this review, editorial, whatever you want to call it, is going to be spoilery, so if you're still planning on watching Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, read on at your own risk.

In short, I enjoyed Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice much more on a second viewing. In many ways, it is a worthy sequel to a classic movie that frankly, was almost impossible to follow. That being said, many of my initial criticisms hold true: the movie is packed with disparate elements, so many that at times, it feels like the entire season of a TV show packed into less than two hours. Several of these elements don't need to be there, shouldn't be there at all, and it feels like the kind of film where you can practically see all the drafts and rewrites of the screenplay messily pieced together like a cadaverous Tim Burton character.

The movie opens in the present day. Lydia Deetz, all grown up, has turned her ability to see ghosts into a business, hosting her own talk show with her douchey fiancée Rory as a producer, when she hears from stepmother Delia (the incomparable Catherine O'Hara, who is an absolute standout in the movie) that her father, Charles (played in the first movie by Jeffrey Jones) has died, and the family, including Lydia's daughter Astrid (played by brilliantly cast Jenna Ortega), have to return to Winter River to attend his funeral.

With me so far? Good.

We flash to the Other Side, where Beetlejuice's ex-wife Delores is resurrected and goes in search of her former beau.

The Ghost with the Most himself, by the way, has been relegated to working a desk job in the afterlife, and when he finds out that Charles Deetz has died, he is reinspired to go in search of Lydia once more, whom he considers his true love.

If you're starting to feel this is getting confusing, you're not wrong. And there's more. Lydia's relationship with her daughter Astrid is strained (mirroring her own relationship with her step-mother Delia) - Astrid believes her mother's psychic powers and TV show is a farce, only to find out that she too, can see the dead, and the perfect Boy Next Door Type she meets is actually the ghost of a killer teen that wants to use her to resurrect himself. Oh, and then there's the completely unnecessary Willem Defoe as a dead actor-turned-afterlife cop that is on the hunt for Delores as she hunts for her ex-husband.

It's dizzying just trying to remember all the details (oh yeah, I forgot another subplot, Lydia and her fiancée are to be married on Halloween), and while Burton, who after decades of honing his craft and his own very unique brand somehow works it out, it doesn't always flow particularly well. Each of the aforementioned subplots needed more development. The most curious of which (also so far unmentioned), is the half-eaten ghost of Charles Deetz trying to find his way back home. Jeffrey Jones, who played Deetz in the first film, has been rightfully blacklisted after having to register as a sex offender, so starting the movie off with his death is a stroke of brilliance but marred by the bizarre choice of making him pop up throughout the movie as a half-eaten, blood-sputtering corpse. I suppose in a movie about ghosts, with Charles dead, it wouldn't have made sense to include him somehow, but the movie would have and should have worked without it.

Delores, played by the still-gorgeous Monica Bellucci, is an example of an underused plot device that should have played a more central role in the plot. Featuring the Tim Burton staple - pun intended - of a stapled-together body, she merely floats on screen here and there, asking after Beetlejuice and soul-sucking any hapless ghost she comes across. You're led to believe that a big showdown between Beetlejuice and his ex is coming, but when it finally does happen, he just talks her into hooking up with Lydia's fiancé, Rory.

Astrid having her mother's psychic power works, and her seeing a handsome young boy who turns out to be a ghost is fine, but creating yet another thread in the web of this movie's plot by having him be evil is just another distraction. It would have made more sense for Beetlejuice himself to try to get to Lydia through her, but that isn't the case.

Beetlejuice himself isn't in the movie enough, most likely because he's sharing the screen with so many characters and subplots. Keaton is great as the Ghost with the Most, falling back into the white and black stripes like he'd worn them just yesterday. His story arc doesn't make a lot of sense, though. The last time we saw him, he had his head shrunk in the waiting room, and now he's working a desk, surrounded by other shrunken-headed characters. That being said, it's great to see him as one of his most iconic characters once more, and he has some laugh-out-loud moments. He just could have used more of them.

The best stuff in the movie is the interaction between the characters. Catherine O'Hara, Winona Ryder, and Jenna Ortega play off each other well. Ryder's Lydia has matured, and O'Hara's Delia has toned it down some, but it still makes for some great bantering. And yet, in another odd move, Delia is killed off, bitten by poisonous snakes, only to be reunited with Charles in the afterlife. It's odd.

The climax of the movie mirrors the climax of the first. Beetlejuice is called forth to save Astrid, with Lydia promising once again to marry him if he helps her. Throw in a sandworm and you have Beetlejuice 2.0.

As I said before, following Beetlejuice after so many years seemed like an impossible task, and while there are a lot of things in this movie that could have and should have been cut or at least heavily edited, the chemistry of the characters, the absurdity of the plot, and fun and creepy Tim Burton vibe of the picture still makes it fun to watch. And I've heard they're making another.

I'll probably see it opening night, too.