What a huge pile of shit this movie is
-
PLT_r_GST — 1 year ago(January 27, 2025 03:27 AM)
I saw it for free, and I'd still like to demand reimbursement.
Getting this out of the way, I'm glad that they were able to get who they could from the original cast (Catherine O'Hara is always great), and I appreciated that they focused on Lydia as the main character, rather than a supporting advisor role to a younger star who gets all the screen-time. It could've been as bad with the inclusion of a daughter character, but thankfully they didn't take that too far.
The rest of this movie is garbage. It's a compilation of half-baked characters and plot threads that do not flow together at all, nor do they ever come together in any sort of a halfway-satisfying conclusion.
What was the deal with Beetlejuice's wife? I kept forgetting she was in this movie until she comes walking down halls and around corners here and there, like some Scooby-Doo bullshit. And it ultimately amounts to nothing; they give her that introduction and backstory, and give her nothing else to do! The entire role reeks of shoehorning, if only to involve Bellucci in some way because she's dating Burton, and not because the movie wouldn't work without the character.
I wouldn't have anyone other than Keaton portraying Beetlejuice, but he seriously lacked whatever enthusiasm made him iconic in the first movie. One can't blame his age, either, because he's still turning out good performances in other films. In this one, though? Watch any of his scenes from the first one, and then watch him in this. That excitable crackhead energy that made Beetlejuice memorable just isn't present in this sequel.
The visual gags in this movie made me cringe, like I was embarrassed to be sitting there watching it (and I was alone!). In the first one, they were inventive and clever (the ghost effects in the Maitland home, the banister turning into a giant snake, the shrimp cocktails manifesting as sinister hands, Beetlejuice's various feats of magical mischief). In this sequel, they're just dumb, often serving as pay-offs to corny set-ups in the dialogue (the entire couples counseling scene for one example), and always lacking the style and spirit of the first film.
Mind you, I'm not saying that this movie
has to be exactly like the first,
but it betrays so much about what made the first one good that it feels more like a made-for-TV Halloween special than a sequel to a Tim Burton classic.
At least the first one still exists, and doesn't need this lousy sequel to feel complete.