BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE Movie Review | Venice Film Festival 2024

The juice is loose… again! Beetlejuice Beetlejuice immerses us in its cartoony world, but is too heavily plotted for its own good, unable to balance all its threads satisfyingly.

Nearly 40 years, in only his second feature, Tim Burton dazzled audiences and made a name of himself in the Hollywood landscape with the now iconic cult classic Beetlejuice, and for years fans have loudly begged for a sequel, and in typical Burton fashion, the long-awaited sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has finally been released in the oddest of contexts: as the opening film at the 2024 Venice Film Festival.

A welcomed juxtaposition to the usual “prestige” festival line up of Oscar potential, which perfectly matches the odd-ball eccentricities of the world of Beetlejuice and Tim Burton’s storytelling sensibilities and trademarks, and the director manages to deliver a very natural follow-up to the original classic, maintaining his playfully spooky vibe and iconic tropes of macabre humour, grossout body horror and thematic ruminations on grief and death. All while avoiding treading the same ground but rather expanding on the mythos and world of the afterlife by bringing new characters into the mix and a more elaborate plot (perhaps too elaborate, more on that later).

Burton brings us back to Winter River as one would expect, immersing us into his world once more with his stylish overhead shot flying all over the town’s iconic locations until it lands on the Ghost House where a still haunted by Beetlejuice Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) is befallen by a family tragedy, bringing three generations of the Deetz family back home, and just when Lydia thinks her stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara) and her boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux) are her biggest headaches, Lydia’s estranged teen daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) accidentally opens the portal to the Afterlife, releasing the juice-man back into our world to unleash all sorts of chaos.

The kind of chaos that never fails to be dynamic, creative and darkly funny, elements that standout in the currently CGI obsessed Hollywood landscape thanks Burton’s adoration for practical effects. From the set-design to the lighting, to the make-up and creature design, every frame in the afterlife is a creative feast for the eyes. Burton & cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos imbue such distinct atmospheric flair helping each eye-catching sequence in the nightmarishly bureaucratic afterlife be a welcomed addition to the sequel, as now we spend much more time in the haunted offices and hallways of Beetlejuice’s domain than we ever did in the first film, and so do our characters, allowing us more time with the main man himself.

Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) is as energetically zany as ever, as if he had stayed in character for the past (nearly) 4 decades, effortlessly hamming it up as a “living” & breathing cartoon come to life, surely helping fans feel at home and back in the same place they so fondly remember. Such fond memories are however not shared by Lydia who, is revealed to now be the hostess of her own ghost hunting television show “Ghost House with Lydia Deetz”, a show ran by her boyfriend and manager Rory, who seems to be a better match for the currently art obsessed grieving Delia rather than the former goth teen.

Keaton’s energy is perfectly matched by the rest of the cast, and nobody does it better than the fantastic Catherine O’Hara, her morbid adoration for the marriage of art & grief easily garners the biggest laughs in the film, but a special mention must be given to Willem Dafoe, a former actor now turned detective in the afterlife investigating Beetlejuice who is on the run from his ex-wife Delores (Monica Belushi), a soul-sucker who escapes her confinement to deal with some unfinished business with her former spouse.

It’s this thread that quickly reveals the messiness of the film: too many characters, too many storylines and too much separation between them. As fun as some sequences and jokes are the narratively is as sloppily stapled together as Delores’s limbs, despite how fun it can be to explore on the expanding mythos of the afterlife.

It’s all the more noticeable because screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar can’t seem to decide who they want the protagonist of this story to be: it needs to be the continuation of Lydia’s story, who now has to grieve her deceased father, fix her relationship with her mother and must deal with a pushy and demanding boyfriend, but it’s Beetlejuice who now takes most of the spotlight, as one would expect, due to his iconic status but his now decades-long obsession with Lydia is the one thing that can save him from Delores.

All the while, Astrid needs to learn about the afterlife so she can believe her mother, find her father and fix their relationship, but her story takes her in her own path where she discovers the afterlife by falling in love with a neighbouring boy who is a fan of Lydia’s story and program. It’s a strange (and not in a good way) decision to make a wacky comedy so heavily plotted and mechanic in its narrative structure, nearly taking away from how light & breezy the watching experience can be, thanks to the charismatic cast and iconic world.

The salt on the wound really is how so many of the characters and storylines barely, if at all converge, with many of them (mainly Delores’ story) fail to lead anywhere interesting, consequently undermining the reason for Beetlejuice’s return and reconnection with the Deetz family.

While it doesn’t take away from what fun elements exist in the film, it certainly makes the whole a lot lesser than its parts. For fans of Burton and of the original there is a lot to take away from the legacy sequel, it’s the world they fell in love with and the characters they love spending time with, so while it may fall short of welcoming new fans to Winter River, Burton holds true to his humble early days as a storyteller, where his commitment to practical effects is on full display and becomes the heartbeat of the film.

Even with the “cheap looking” CGI being part of the charm of a distinctively quintessential Tim Burton film: it’s delightfully zany, mean-spirited, macabre and narratively all over the place.

It immerses us in its cartoony world & wacky energy, but it’s too heavily plotted for its own good, unable to balance all its threads satisfyingly.

FINAL GRADE: C+

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About Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River after an unexpected family tragedy. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia’s life soon gets turned upside down when her rebellious teenage daughter discovers a mysterious portal to the afterlife. When someone says Beetlejuice’s name three times, the mischievous demon gleefully returns to unleash his very own brand of mayhem.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice comes to theaters on September 6th.