'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' is a (bio)-exorcise in mediocrity

I absolutely adore the original “Beetlejuice.” It was one of the first older movies I saw on the big screen. I've seen it probably five times. It's my second-favorite Tim Burton feature after 1994's “Ed Wood.”

So, it stands to reason I would have been decently excited when it was announced they were coming out with a long-awaited sequel, titled “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” after nearly 40 years and many varyingly successful attempts to revive the franchise.

Well, I wasn't. 

See, I've been burned too many times by legacy sequels to older pictures. Take last year’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” the “Jurassic World” trilogy or “Top Gun: Maverick” (which I think is rotten to the core), as examples. Hell, I don’t even care about the Ghostbusters franchise, and I was still actively angry for the first time in a while after watching “Ghostbusters: Afterlife.”

Naturally, I went into “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” a decently apprehensive moviegoer. And, folks, you heard it here first: it's fine! It's a totally fine movie. Plenty of good stuff in it, plenty of bad stuff, a shocking amount of boring stuff and not much else.

The juice is far from loose. The juice is downright restrained.

For one thing, the tone feels just a smidge off. Part of what made the original “Beetlejuice” so special was its off-the-wall originality. It was a horror comedy that managed hardly to retread old ground in either of its already-tired genres. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” largely tosses that principle of novelty aside in favor of playing a proverbial greatest hits record of bits from the original film.

The acting, on the other hand, is predictably tremendous. Everyone involved is just devouring the scenery, as one expects from a cast so big and so full of legendary talent. The standouts for me were Catherine O’Hara (unexpectedly the most entertaining person here!), Winona Ryder, who is still a top five actress for me, and Willem Dafoe, who I did not know was in the movie before I sat down in the theater. The realization during the opening credits that he was involved was far and away the highlight of the entire affair. 

Now, my biggest problem with “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is that it's not funny! Well, I mean, it is funny. But for a movie with “Beetlejuice” in its name (twice!), I expect to laugh a good bit. The original “Beetlejuice” was a very funny movie. Pretty much every scene therein has at least one great laugh line. 

The sequel would definitely be funny enough if it were a standalone film unconnected to a classic comedy, but it's not. It sets expectations for itself on which it fails to deliver.

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” has, for lack of a better word, a bananas script. And not in the screwball way the original did. No, it's pretty tame within the confines of its own world. There's just so much going on, and none of it really lands. I won't spoil it, because it ultimately is a decently fun time – if you found a “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” ticket on the sidewalk, I'd recommend you use it. But the story spreads itself far too thin.

The problems this causes could be solved in a couple of ways. Firstly, one could just make the movie longer. I don't think anyone would begrudge this film an extra 20 minutes to make one of its five antagonists into a real character. 

Secondly, one could pare down the story a good bit just by removing a character or two entirely. Specifically, Monica Bellucci's character, as visually cool as she is, could easily be entirely cut without much lost (sorry, Monica, I loved your cameo in “Twin Peaks”).

I think the reason the muddled second half of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” bugs me so much is just how little Beetlejuice himself actually gets to do in the film. For Pete's sake, his name (again, twice!) is the title of the damn movie! Why doesn't he get anything cool to do? 

The “haunting” scenes from the original “Beetlejuice” are definitely the most memorable parts of that movie for me. There's nothing here that comes close to those scenes for the Juice. I suppose there's one scene near the end that one could equate to the classics, but it just doesn't feel … right.

And that's the nail on the head of this whole thing. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” gets so close to the things that made “Beetlejuice” so good in the first place but lacks the drive to go beyond a pale imitation of these elements. 

It's like the filmmakers are trying to reverse-engineer “Beetlejuice” with only the finished original film as a blueprint, which I would excuse were it a different creative team – but it's still Tim Burton! It's still Danny Elfman! It's still Michael Keaton! They just can’t seem to figure it out! They're still who they are, so there are still moments where they get the magic back, but they're far fewer and farther between than they have any reason to be. 

Ultimately, if you expect “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” to be half as good as the original, you'll be pretty satisfied. Because it's exactly half as good as the original. Go see it if you want, but I wouldn't exactly kick down the theater doors to do so. Oh, and don't read this article out loud. I've said “Beetlejuice” enough times to summon the guy nine times over. 

Letterboxd: @Banana_Peels

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