This weekend I was tickled pink to see Tim Burton’s latest movie, “Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice,” not once but twice in New Orleans’ Prytania Theatre. As a die-hard fan of the original 1988 film, there was no way in the afterlife that I would miss the long-awaited sequel. With Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara all reprising their original roles and Jenna Ortega playing Ryder’s teenage daughter, I had high hopes for this movie, which released on Thursday, Sept. 5.
You may wonder why it took so long for Tim Burton Productions to make a sequel, as the original came out 36 years ago. When I dove into the lore, I found that there were two scrapped sequels: “Beetlejuice in Love” and “Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian.” There was little else on either film but having now seen the sequel, I can confidently say I am glad this was the movie we got.
Winona Ryder returned to play Lydia Deetz, but Lydia’s spiky bangs and all-black wardrobe were the only things about her character that stayed true to the original. I have gone back and forth about whether I like how the writers aged Lydia’s character. On one hand, it makes sense that Lydia would not be the same morose girl from the original; on the other, I do not believe that Lydia would have sold out and marketed her talents as a psychic. After all, in the original film, the reason she summons Beetlejuice is to stop Otho from “killing” Adam and Barbara Maitland — again, since they are already dead — as part of Charles and Delia Deetz’s ploy to market their Winter River house as a genuine haunted attraction. The opposite of a goth teenager is not a reality television personality.
Jenna Ortega is quickly making a name for herself as a scream queen of our generation: Her filmography boasts slashers such as “X,” “Scream” and “Scream IV,” as well as Burton’s “Wednesday.” However, in recent works — specifically Burton productions — it feels like she is playing the same witty yet nihilistic teenage girl who is just a shade bleaker than the manic pixie dream girl of the 2000s. But in this film, she meets her match in Arthur Conti’s Jeremy, who recalls Jason Dean from “Heathers.”
Michael Keaton’s Beetlejuice was exactly as I expected him to be: a little disgusting, a little creepy and very entertaining. Before seeing the movie, I read an article that discussed how both Keaton and Burton wanted to keep Beetlejuice as politically incorrect as possible. The best thing about Beetlejuice is that he does not evolve and 36 years later, he is still the same slimeball who tried to coerce Lydia into a sham of a marriage in 1988. And thank god Jane Butterfield returned as the world’s most inappropriate real estate agent. It would not have been a Beetlejuice movie without her inability to read a room.
Where the movie really succeeded was in its ability to stay true to the original material and Burton’s filmmaking: Viewers might be slightly taken aback to see Charles Deetz’s death reenacted in claymation but the scene is a nice callback to older Burton films like “Coraline.” We got to return to Titan — one of Jupiter’s moons where the sandworms reside — and a sandworm even came back in a deus ex machina finale to resolve all the conflict in the 105-minute runtime. I was disappointed that “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” only came back in the form of a creepy children’s choir, but the rest of the soundtrack included “Margaritaville” by the late and great Jimmy Buffett and “Tragedy” by the Bee Gees.
All the interwoven plotlines may feel excessive, but this is purposeful. As Astrid says, “The afterlife is so random.” So, too, was this movie.
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