Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” contains so many comedic gambits that after every few minutes one is forced to take a break. Tim Burton is back to what he had often done in the past, which is to say that at the beginning of his career he did not care about form, other than at the very basic level of how the picture is framed.
In case you were wondering, that is not a criticism. That is simply what it is. It is quite fun, almost in the self-indulgent way the film junkies may be fond of. Headless torso of a man eaten by sharks is one of the featured characters in this movie. There are also some animated characters in one of the claymation sequences, dreams within dreams, a couple of operatic things, multiple engagements and marriage threats, and an insane final sequence that ranks among the most opulent flights of fancy Escape from New York director Tim Burton has ever entertained. The film looks to have had a blast trying to see how far it could go without getting a R rating, even being rated PG 13 it was very hard to watch due to onscreen violence as well as humorous elements that one would see in cartoons like Itchy and Scratchy that were featured in The Simpsons, that saved the film.
What else do you need to really know? Winona Ryder is back as Lydia Deetz, a goth teenager who married Betelgeuse (also known as Beetlejuice or Michael Keaton) in the 1988 movie. Now, Ms. Lydia is a medium with a teenage daughter named Astrid whom she hosts with a thirty something lady who has a successful show in New York City called Ghost House with Lydia Deetz. Astrid Deetz, has a deep-seated hatred for her mother, who is divorced and works as a medium with her forties career.
Lydia has a boyfriend named Rory (played by Justin Theroux), who is also her producer and considers himself responsible for keeping ex-addict Lydia sober (although they both go off the path a little). Was this cosmic connection good considering who she was in the first film, as now she has turned into a pop culture influencer and multimedia gallery artist Lydia’s step-grandmother Delia Deetz (Catharine O’Hara).
They all return back to Winter River after the abrupt death of Charles, Delia’s husband (played by Jeffrey Jones in the original). And of course, they become embroiled with Beetlejuice, who himself has an ex-wife from hell to deal with Delores (Monica Bellucci). Delores is a demonic gargoyle and was once married to The Juice her husband when he was a grave robber during the plague in the 14th century. She wishes to reunite with The Juice and is on her way to the underworlds to do so. Other than being a character or a plot device, Delores seems to be the one who enables Burton and the co-writers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (‘Wednesday’ too) to inject regular doses of horror into the film. And she does.
Delores has quite a sighting introducing herself as a dismembered doll assembling herself with a stapler to her limbs. die-hard fans of Tim Burton’s animation style may find Stanton quite similar to the character Sally from Burton’s critically acclaimed stop-motion film The Nightmare Before Christmas, a doll stitched together from different body parts.
“Beetlejuice” has a subplot involving the object of Astrid’s affections, a local teenager, Arthur Conti who, coincidently, has a major role in “House of the dragons” okay concludes their relationship on Halloween, where the main character is dressed in a Marie Curie-esque costume, halfway through her radiation sickness. Those romance scenes in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” have to be towards the last month of the year because there is a significant amount of teenage attraction that is fraught with witty exchanges, rhythm and sound, and story. In fact, there should have been more of this stuff. It’s so good (mainly due to the amazing performances of Conti and Ortega, but also how Burton captures and sequences their moments) that it could have held the plot of a completely different movie.
As usual, Keaton is a delight. There’s something almost voyeuristic watching him put down the rancid skin of Beetlejuice’s character. It looks as though he is one of those old men who went to prom and keeps his tux in the closet to fit him perfectly whenever he likes. Amongst the rest of the principal cast members that have returned, however, Ryder is the most remarkable. She brings a certain melancholic delicacy that is akin to a broken person who has gone through trauma, yet endures. She reaches into her darkest perspective where the woman regrets her pastanytime she tries to step foot forward, she is stuck in the same place she has been for years with no changes visually or physically in comparison to her track record. The best thing about the 80s (apart from the music) was Winona Ryder making her presence known after a long absence (mostly due to ‘Stranger Things’). In this performance, she brings the adult, albeit a slightly more haggard version. However, there is still a sweet note in her flute like croaky voice. She is great with Theroux, who has that Jon Hamm talent of portraying a man child without making it obvious it isn’t real.
The various elements do not come together so much as they enclose and at times clash with one another.
There are times when the contrivances that allow the characters to be present in the same location to tell each other vital pieces of information are so forced and even unnatural that Burton appears to enjoy them and turns them into a private game between him and the viewers. It’s amusing to develop the underworld as an alternative society with its own weird and reverse standard and rules of sociability but it is largely not imaginative (the mockery of office petty desk jobs and conforming mindless bureaucrats is stuck in the ’80s, which is not good) but it’s not a big disappointment because that universe is essentially just a giant, surreal Disneyland for Burton, re-teaming with costume designer Colleen Atwood (a frequent Burton collaborator since 1990s’ “Edward Scissorhands”), director of photography Harris Zamabarloukos (“Belfast”) and production designer Mark Scruton (yet another “Wednesday” recruitment).
Burton fans don’t have to worry about having their expectations shattered thanks to the release of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. From the early days of Burton’s career this is Burton being a quintessential Burton in every sense. He created this unique identity of a high school goth who dabbled in animation as his first career. He was a cross between an artist, a magician who does illusions and a comedian who makes for different props. In the mid-90s he seemed to take the plunge into developing the narratives of his stories as well (except with very welcome plotless and sort of awful movies like Mars Attacks!). But eventually this meaning seemed aesthetically too tidy and overly thought out. And when he eventually yielded to CGI, the films seemed to entirely lose that artistic handmade quality.
He enjoys this venture as an opportunity to relive his director’s childhood when all he wanted to do was create worlds, satisfying his creative impulses and pushing the limits. In the ending credits, there must be at least a hundred puppeteers and prop makers mentioned. Each and every hot glued dot, crooked latex join, hand-painted border around the camera, is captured on the screen and feels like you are looking at something that giant, entertaining and crafted by people rather than a computer.
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