Nostalgia has been the driving force behind many of the recent releases, with sequels, prequels, reboots, and remakes of the movies we’ve come to love that have dominated theaters over the past few years. from Ghostbusters arrive indiana jones, scream arrive spiderman, tornado arrive dead Poolit feels like now more than ever we’re eager to rekindle the joy and laughter of pop culture’s past. Instead of just watching the original film, audiences are eager to return to the beloved characters and the unique worlds they inhabited, wondering what they would be like now.
But these nostalgic remakes face a difficult challenge: They must strive to capture the spirit of the original (which is often impossible) or surpass it while adding something fresh. This may succeed surprisingly, or it may fail miserably—unfortunately, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Belongs to the latter. While director Tim Burton is the horror-comedy we all know and love, much of this sequel to the 1988 classic feels like it’s on some kind of crazy merry-go-round; it just goes on and on. Spinning past parts of the storyline, visual slapstick, and limited character development without digging deep into the emotional core.
Beetlejuice But let it be girl power
One of the best aspects of the sequel is its focus on three generations of Dietz women. The original film’s star, Winona Ryder, expertly brought Lydia Deetz’s melancholy to middle age. While she still retains her signature bouffant hairdo and long black dress, her character has evolved into a more anxious and distant young woman than we once knew. She takes medication and has trouble connecting with her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega). Now a psychic, Lydia hosts a television series that uses her ability to communicate with the ghosts she can see. But lately she’s been haunted by disturbing visions of her teenage demon, Betelgeuse. Lydia loses her teenage enthusiasm, allowing her to be taken advantage of by her smarmy producer and boyfriend (played by Justin Theroux).
Lydia’s transformation from photographer to TV star feels a little out of character for her, as she’s always been a solitary and quiet person. But people change, especially in the decades after turning 16. It also allows for shameless meta-commentary, seeing Astrid chafing at living in her mother’s shadow and wanting to carve out her own story.
Read more: We’ve ranked every Tim Burton movie, now including Beetlejuice BeetlejuiceFrom worst to best
Jenna Ortega has a sullen expression, downturned mouth, and huge eyes that look like they came from a Tim Burton factory. As in her starring role in the Burton series WednesdayJenna Ortega is the perfect match for a new generation of anxiety sufferers Beetlejuice wack. Echoing Lydia’s dissatisfaction with her stepmother Delia in the first film, Astrid resents her mother’s psychic abilities and showbiz career. She idolized her late father and fought for important causes such as environmental protection.
This dynamic makes her an easy target for Jeremy, a Dostoyevsky-loving teen who turns out to be more than he initially seems. This all sounds like fodder for interesting tension and sharp characterization, but unlike Tim Burton’s past films, the pathos of these films is as evocative as his visuals, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Most rely on exposition and rushed plot devices to move everything along, making the story feel rushed and shallow. We never spend enough time with the characters to understand who they are and how they feel. When Astrid ventures into the underworld and conveniently encounters her father, it leads to a family reunion, but it moves too quickly to have any emotional impact.
Catherine O’Hara returns as the dramatic Delia, whose transition from sculpture to multimedia art results in some hilarious moments, such as when she films herself trying to capture the perfect primal scream. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Shrewdly avoids actor Jeffrey Jones, who played Delia’s husband Charles in the original, whose career was ended by a child pornography scandal, using stop-motion animation sequences to show how he died. The stop-motion sandworms from the original also return, retaining the cartoony, old-school aesthetic of the 1988 film, despite risky use of CGI that cluttered the film’s visual language.
image: Warner Bros. Pictures
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice carnival nostalgia
As the titular character, Michael Keaton is suitably gruff and eccentric, but he’s lost some of his bite. The film’s foray into contemporary humor, which finds it mocking the language of therapy and focusing on healing from trauma and addressing one’s inner child, just doesn’t sting as much as the barbs in the original. Betelgeuse is involved in a plot, and Monica Bellucci plays Dolores, but is underused. The nightmare before christmas Has a body that is stapled together. As she stalks him through the underworld, she looks sexy and sinister, but little else. Her cliche story makes no sense, except for a reason to reenact the wedding scene at the end of the original Beetlejuice And Lydia’s blood-red dress.
Another new face is Willem Dafoe, who is perfect for Tim Burton’s quirky style as Wolf Jackson, an action star, carrying out his afterlife police duties with all the artificial enthusiasm he brought to his movie roles. Oddly enough, I got more laughs from Wolfe than I did from Betelgeuse. Other jokes, like the obvious, literal Soul Train and Astrid’s “I swear, the afterlife is so random” soliloquy, don’t cut it.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice It’s more comfortable to memorize references from the first film than to do anything different. A children’s choir sang “Banana Boat (Day-O)” at Charles’ funeral; for no earthly reason other than to reference that infamous scene. I know it’s a fantasy comedy, but the expense of storytelling for obvious nostalgia bait is too high.
There’s another lip sync scene at the end Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Really, how could it not be?) But Tim Burton could never top the calypso orgy that the original set for Harry Bellefonte. Richard Harris’s feature-length “MacArthur Park” is a delightfully odd choice, but it also feels unworthy of being inserted just for the sake of having another musical number.
For the original me I may have been wearing rose colored glasses BeetlejuiceI grew up watching it as a child, but sitting next to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice It feels like going to an amusement park as an adult: the rides are now old and clunky and you just want to get off. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice It’s all flashing lights and bright colors, but very little substance.
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