06/09/24

Cineworld, Edinburgh

The juice is loose!

Look, there’s no getting around the fact that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice isn’t a very good film. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy it. I do; I’m not immune to nostalgia. I was seventeen when the original movie was released and I loved Winona. “I myself am strange and unusual,” was every teenage goth girl’s clarion call and Lydia Deetz was my style icon for the next decade. So of course I’m watching Tim Burton’s long-awaited sequel on the day of its release.

It’s been thirty-six years but Ryder has barely changed. Nor has Michael Keaton: his Beetlejuice is as repellant as ever. Still, at least his lust for Lydia is a bit less creepy now that she’s an adult.

Adult Lydia is a celebrated medium. This makes me laugh: it’s gloriously obvious. She’s in the middle of recording her TV show when her stepmum, Delia (Catherine O’Hara) calls with bad news: Lydia’s dad, Charles, has died. It’s time to head back to the haunted house in Winter River, with dodgy boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux) and angry daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) in tow. It’ll be fine. All she has to do is stay away from the model village in the attic and make sure no one says “Beetlejuice” three times.

Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. Beetle… Oops.

Sadly, from hereon in, the plot veers out of control, as wild and unpredictable as its eponymous antihero. In the underworld, a brilliant sequence where Beetlejuice’s ex-wife, Delores (Monica Bellucci), declares vengeance on him even as she’s stapling her dismembered body parts back together peters out into nothing, squandering a fun idea and a strong performance. Willem Dafoe is similarly under-used as Wolf Jackson, a dead actor struggling to differentiate between himself and the long-running character he played. It’s a neat set-up with nowhere to go. Meanwhile, in the land of the living, Rory is pressuring Lydia to marry him, Delia is turning Charles’ death into an art installation, and Astrid – still mourning her own dad, Richard (Santiago Cabrera) – has met a cute boy (Arthur Conti), who likes reading almost as much as she does… It’s scattershot to say the least.

Of course, when you throw this much at something, some of it sticks – but there’s a lot of wastage. The animated sequence showing Charles’ death is nicely done, but it feels like a segment from a different film. Even more out of place is the black-and-white Italian flashback, the nod to horror pioneer Mario Bava an easter egg for the wrong audience.

It’s much more of a kids’ film than I remember. In fact, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice reminds me of Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll’s original, not Burton’s dismal remake). The imagery is remarkable, there are a lot of memorable characters and some gorgeous set pieces – but the rambling story doesn’t make much sense. Still, I guess there are worse insults. Alice isn’t exactly a failure, and maybe Beetlejuice X 2 will prove similarly popular. At tonight’s screening, the prevalence of gleeful tweenagers in stripy costumes suggests it well might.

So why not go see it and judge for yourself? If you’re happy to sit back for a couple of undemanding hours of gothic silliness, buy your ticket now. You get a free demon possession with every exorcism…

3 stars

Susan Singfield