Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)

4/10

Starring          

Michael Keaton

Winona Ryder

Catherine O'Hara

Jenna Ortega

Justin Theroux

Monica Bellucci

Willem Dafoe

 

Directed by Tim Burton

 

Thirty-six years after the masterpiece Beetlejuice (1988), we now have a sequel. This sequel tries to not forget the characters of the previous movie and maintain the special effect style of the first movie, to give this movie the same kind of feel. The problem is the story itself is not focused enough to gather the same kind of love as in the first movie. This movie had too many characters and too many sub-plots and just felt like it was made as a fan service art, rather than a movie meant to be a continuation of a legacy. Michael Keaton reprises his role as Beetlejuice.

The characters like Delores played by Monica Bellucci or Wolf played by Williem Dafeo, if you delete those characters from the movie, I think the movie will still have the same ending. Because both were added to the movie as forms of distractions, but were never integral to the movie itself. At first, it seemed like Delores was the main villain, but the plot just winds past her. Theirs and the other subplots were placed for laughs, problem is they made the movie feel lost.

The movie also introduces us to Astrid (Jenna Ortega) Lydia’s daughter. Now Lydia has embraced her ability to see ghosts, and milks it for money. She is the host of a show called Ghost House with Lydia Deetz, and she is dating the producer. She and Astrid are estranged and so is Lydia and her parents, but the death of her father, causes both Lydia (Winona Ryder) and Delia (Catherine O’Hara) to unite and start planning the burial.

There is a missing link in the movie, which is never fully explored. Astrid and Lydia’s estranged situation is not fully felt on screen. Astrid explains why they are estranged, which for many movies is enough, but add to it that her father is also dead, there seem to be more which can best be explained from Lydia’s view than just Astrid, which was not done.

We are shown that she does not like her family, as you will see from the movie, that they are weird and neglecting, but still it felt in the movie that they could have done more to make that feeling of distance more meaningful.

Unlike the first movie, Beetlejuice is shown a lot more, and we see him trying his best to get Lydia’s attention from the land of the dead. Astrid gets herself into some trouble, and she is in the underworld and Lydia needs help to save her, so she calls out Beetlejuice, and he agreed to help her based on his own conditions.

In the end, as I said, the movie is just a fan service making and lacks the fun of the first movie.