Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)

Director: Tim Burton

Cast: Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Jenna Ortega

Have I Seen it Before: Clearly, never. I did once have a dream when I was kid that I had lost my VHS copy of Beetlejuice 2, and was bereft to have the film leave my life. There was a time* when I wasn’t even sure I wanted a sequel to Beetlejuice (1988), but the Michael Keaton Rule** does prevail.

Then, I got more and more excited about the whole thing. Couple that with the odyssey that it took to actually get me into a theater on opening weekend, and I would have liked any old thing projected on the screen.

Did I Like It: I’ve seen the movie twice now—once to let it all wash over me, and a second to take more diligent notes for the soon-to-be-recorded episode of Beyond the Cabin in the Woods—and I’m happy to report it is not only pretty good, it is largely very good, and I’m not damning it with faint praise. It’s easily Tim Burton’s best film since they started beginning years with the number “2” and likely his best film since Ed Wood (1994). Keaton is brilliant again in the role, this time completely game for the prospect of re-visiting his 80s triumphs***. Ryder is a delight as Lydia, perpetually bewildered by the scope of her life thirty-plus years after first deciding she can see ghosts. O’Hara can do almost anything, and once again does effortless work to steal every scene she graces. Newcomer Jenna Ortega does something I didn’t think the film would be capable of and creates a new character out of Astrid, when the film would have likely been forgiven for just making Lydia’s daughter a 1:1 translation of the mother.

That’s the most delightful surprise in the film: for being a legacy sequel, the film is largely disinterested in fan service beyond the obligatory. Belafonte’s “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” makes the briefest of appearances, but the needle drops are all trying to forge something of a new path. The original film’s secret strengths were its army of strange and unusual**** dead people, and the fact that its depiction of the afterlife is a near Kafkaesque exploration of the bureaucratic. Both elements are in full force here.

In fact, the only real complaint I have about the film is one I didn’t think I was going to have going into the theater. Elfman’s score is just a rehashing of tracks from the original, with a menu of new noises added into the mix. I wanted more here, but then I realized it has been a very, very long time since Elfman wrote a really memorable score. Burton stepped up to the plate here, but it’s just a bit disappointing that Elfman didn’t do the same thing.

*It was never more profound than immediately after seeing The Flash (2023), around the time this film was already in production. I probably had that thought more than a few times during the endless series of stops and starts in the process. I am happy to report that the film doesn’t end with Betelgeuse being exorcised and being replaced by a different kind of Betelgeuse played by George Clooney. Had they pulled that trick again, I would not have been okay, and I said so.

**Sometimes called the Multiplicity (1996) amplifier, wherein a film is inherently better

***Man, the more that I think about The Flash, the more I have problems with it, huh?

****Apparently I tripped into more fan service in that sentence than the film is interested in for its runtime.

Alien Resurrection (1997)

Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, Dan Hedaya

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. You buy an Alien box set in a couple of different formats, and you’re bound to give in. My biggest memory of the film, however, is it opening along with the grand opening of the AMC Southroads 20 here in Tulsa, and my poor little 13 year would have wanted nothing more in life than to just go to the theater of my own accord and watch a mindless monster movie sequel.

Did I Like It: I’ve been watching a lot of 90s late-series genre movies lately, and there’s no way to judge this movie by exceptionally harsh standards. Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997) should have probably been cancelled before shooting began. Batman & Robin (1997) is a movie I have been spending a lot of my life really loathing, and for some good reason, but I’ve come to understand that someone out there might enjoy it. Beverly Hills Cop III (1994) I keep referencing in recent reviews, mainly because the more I think about it, the worse the movie gets. Ultimately, this one could be a lot worse, and sort of works in fits and starts as a b sci-fi movie. It’s a step up from Alien 3 (1992), although the last entry didn’t exactly leave us with a lot of beloved characters to suddenly kill in a prologue.

One doesn’t necessarily want to engage in a lot of blind praise for Joss Whedon, but the story of this film is its strong suit. Ultimately the pitch of “a prototype version of the crew from Firefly and Serenity (2005)) up against a new batch of Xenomorphs is a nice idea for a movie. Sure, the notion that some of Ripley’s (Weaver) memories survive into a clone is a little silly, but the cloning plot line does give the movie something of a reason for existing, and more importantly gives Weaver new and interesting things to do. All of this concludes with an ending that seems ready for a future (that was not meant to be) for the series—which Alien 3 was resolutely against—even if that history was meant to focus on Ryder’s Call, always inhabiting the film as if she is waiting to take over in the event Weaver gets bored.

Special effects are the film’s Achilles’ heel, though. There is some interesting and genuinely unsettling creature work when the film focuses—really only for a single scene—on the array of Ripley clone drafts. But our friend the Xenomorph never looked—and never would look—so underwhelming. Physical actors in suits look like the costumes were hastily put together. The otherworldly quality of H.R. Giger or Stan Winston are gone. The less said about the more extensive attempts—Alien 3 tried it occasionally—to render the creatures using CGI, the better. If I had wanted to play the Alien Resurrection game on the original Playstation, I would have just done that.

Mermaids (1990)

Director: Richard Benjamin

Cast: Cher, Bob Hoskins, Winona Ryder, Christina Ricci

Have I Seen it Before: Never. It’s been one of those movies which Lora counted as her favorite and put an APB on picking it up if I ever found it on one of my prolonged DVD hunts. Coming up short, I eventually caved and ordered off of Amazon. Not how I normally like to procure my movies—there is something in the hunt I always enjoy—but here we are.

Did I Like It: There are some comedies which are powered entirely by how we feel about spending time with the characters. The story is meaningless, basically, but if we like the characters, everything works out okay for us the audience.

Here is the plot of Mermaids: A single woman and her two daughters move to a new town. The oldest becomes infatuated with a local boy, and kisses him. Because of this, the younger child falls into water and is injured. Everyone survives.

Not much, right? And that’s compounded by the fact that the majority of that synopsis takes place in the last thirty minutes or so, and doesn’t include Lou (Hoskins), one of the lead… because he has very little impact on the film itself. But the characters are quirky enough, and likable enough, and performed well enough, and there’s more than a few deep, sustained belly laughs in the film (“We’re Jewish…”) that everything works out okay for me. I enjoyed my time with them, and in all honesty, I screened the film about a week ago, and I haven’t been able to get Jimmy Soul out of my head most of the time. That has to count for something, right?

But one thing that continues to bug me, aside from parsing out Jimmy Soul’s lyrics. Why the hell is film called Mermaids? I mean, yes, I get Cher’s costume… And the fact that Christina Ricci is intermittently a good swimmer… But aside from that? Winona Ryder is pointedly un-Mermaid, and it feels like she is the main character.

Maybe someone else can explain it to me real slow.

Little Women (1994)

Director: Gillian Armstrong

Cast: Winona Ryder, Kirsten Dunst, Claire Danes, Christian Bale

Have I Seen it Before: Any joke here would feel off, so I’ll just say no.

Did I Like It: Sure! What’s not to like.

Obviously, any adaptation of Louisa May Alcott will be light on plot. To add plot to the proceedings would be either unsettling or profane. And so, the film must rely on the chemistry between the actresses to fuel the movie that surrounds them.

And they do. They are helped by the fact that their characters are intelligent where they might have been irritating. Plenty of smart, self-possessed women have been inspired by any mixture of the March girls, and those are the kind of people around which I would want to spend time.

That moment near the end where Jo stares with nervous, nearly despairing anticipation at her just-completed first novel, and the bubbling ecstasy when the book comes back printed are feelings both  I and many of my friends have surely felt. The movie is filled with these moments of true emotion. It’s a tall order for a movie to function with only these moments to elevate it. In lesser hands, it would have been frightfully dull. Here, it is vibrant. I wish I could make something one day that didn’t need bells and whistles. 

The score is jaunty, although the blaring trumpets did leave me wondering which scenes were taking place at Christmas and which were taking place when Kirsten Dunst metamorphosed into Samantha Mathis. The photography is sumptuous without being needlessly showy, and the sets and locations feel like what one would imagine the 19th century to be. Maybe that one element is actually draped in Hollywood fakery, but it displays this with such confidence that the spirit of the March girls comes forth in the film.

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Cast: Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu Reeves

Have I Seen it Before: I’m sorry, I got distracted by the question. I heard a voice whispering for me to see him, whatever that means.

Did I Like It: At this point, I may be burned out on the Dracula mythos (for any number of reasons). But even so, this movie is interested in doing a lot things not necessarily seen before in Dracula films, that I think it all holds together.

First of all, this movie is a marvel of casting. Between Cary Elwes, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Richard E. Grant, and Billy “The Motherfuckin’ Rocketeer” Campbell, the call sheet is like a mid-90s party and everyone is invited. 

Even Keanu Reeves, who history and assumption assumes is miscast in the role of Jonathan Harker equates himself well in the proceedings, if his British accent is occasionally wavering, but not in a Kevin Costner sort of way. Gary Oldman is a well-oiled acting machine, bringing vivid life to all of the dread count’s various shades. The only member of the cast who seems in over their head is Sadie Frost as the ill-fated Lucy Westerna. One can’t help but wonder if a bigger star, like a Michelle Pfeiffer* or Julia Roberts** might have offered a more memorable performance.

The movie that surrounds these performances feels a little long, even though it comes in at just a little bit over two hours. This may be a byproduct of the Coppola aesthetic. Still, there is a playful quality about the film. Beginning with an aesthetic pulled directly from F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1992), slowly but surely transitioning into a more modern (or at least, modern for the time) monster movie with sumptuous photography and makeup work meant to startle more than inspire dread. Coppola loves movies so dearly, and he wants us to love this one too. His efforts at seduction are mostly, if not entirely successful.

*Although in that universe, we would have likely been deprived of her performance in Batman Returns, and I don’t think that is a Faustian bargain I am willing to make.

**Which I’m not that in favor of, mainly because Julia Roberts has been and always will be a frightful bore. Prove me wrong.

Beetlejuice (1988)

Director: Tim Burton

Cast: Michael (f’ing) Keaton, Winona Ryder, Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, Jeffery Jones, Glenn Shadix, Robert Goulet, Dick Cavett… Christ, the cast on this picture is bonkers.

Have I Seen it Before: It is a core member of the “VHS tapes I wore down to the point of evaporation during childhood” association. 

Did I Like It: It’s a weird movie, but that’s more of an objective statement, isn’t it?

Beetlejuice—Tim Burton’s second feature—is about death. Again, that seems like a pretty objective statement. Perhaps it is about death in the same way that Young Frankenstein (1974) is about neurosurgery. And yet, over dozens of viewings in the late 80s and early 90s, that never seemed to be what the film was about. If you were to ask me in my first decade of life what the story of the film actually is, and I would probably tell you that some people wander around a movie for the better part of an hour before Michael Keaton shows up and the real movie begins. This may be because a) I was more familiar with the ensuing cartoon series based on the movie, that transformed Beetlejuice (Keaton) and Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) from the lecherous demon in search of a suicidal child bride into a pair of wacky pals and b) I wasn’t quite ready to comprehend the idea of death at the age of five.

And yet, I can kind of get where I missed the idea way back when. The whole movie attaches itself to a pointedly nebulous aesthetic. The football team is out of left field, especially when they’re in the last shot of the picture. Why do dead people get sent to Saturn? Why is it a huge public health issue in the deceased community? Why has no one noticed Sand Worms traveling the surface of Saturn? Why did the sandworm appear out of nowhere at the Maitland/Deetz residence? That one’s a bit of deus ex machina, right? Don’t get me started on the fact that this may be the only film in existence which is regularly uncertain about the spelling of its title.

And so the film exists in a state of contradiction, often bewildering, but just as frequently charming. It might be the key case study in my Michael Keaton Theory. (Which postulates that a film is automatically ten percent better than it would have been otherwise. It works wonders in cases like Robocop (2014), and brings the rottentomatoes score of a movie like Multiplicty (1996) into the mid-eighties).

Another thought that only just now occurred to me on this screening: So odd that Burton directed this as sort of a warm up to Batman (1989) and didn’t cast Baldwin as the Dark Knight the next year. I mean, I’m grateful. Baldwin at this point in his career is too-on-the-nose for the “dance of the freaks” Burton was intent to bring to the screen, but the fact that the studio didn’t insist—or, in the alternative, Burton was able to bypass their insistence—is sort of freaky.