Ask yourself, is 36 years the sweet spot in length to get a good movie sequel? In the case of Top Gun, most would agree the answer is a resounding yes. The story was great and compelling while being slightly redundant, the action was insane, and the actors were excellent. Of course, one has to figure Tom Cruise in there as well since he is a box office powerhouse. However, not all 80s films deserve a sequel decades later as evidenced by this week's entry into the mix...Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. Sadly, despite an established director and a mostly wonderful cast, this second go-around doesn't live up to the promise made by the 1988 original.
It's 36 years later and Lydia Deetz (Wynona Ryder; Stranger Things) is all grown up. She is a medium with a popular show called Ghost House and has a teenage daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega; Scream), who has practically disowned her. Lately, Lydia has been seeing glimpses of a ghost from her past a.k.a. Beetlejuice (once again expertly played by Michael Keaton; Spotlight), and her world gets shaken up when her father passes away unexpectedly. Suddenly, Lydia, along with Astrid, find themselves back in Winter River, and, much to her dismay, Lydia is once again face to face with the "ghost with the most" and making a deal with him to save Astrid from the great beyond.
The 1988 movie is beloved for so many reasons. First, the ensemble cast is terrific and, as previously mentioned, Keaton is brilliant. Second, the silliness and bad graphics are organic and fit the feel of the story. Third, Day-o (the Banana Boat Song) - the scene has become a classic. Fourth, the movie offered some originality and a concept that had not been played out over and over again.
This sequel does share one thing in common with the original - a (mostly) great cast but that is because three of the four main characters are Lydia, her stepmother, Delia (Catherine O'Hara; Schitt's Creek), and Beetlejuice (noticeably absent is Jeffrey Jones as Charles Deetz but that has to do with his legal troubles since the early 2000s and the script accommodates for this). Ryder, Keaton, and O'Hara were so well cast the first time around that omitting them (or recasting) would have been a horrible injustice.
Joining them is Ortega, who has played a "Goth" girl before and did so to much praise in the limited series, Wednesday. Ortega is definitely "one to watch in Hollywood," and her casting made perfect sense as Lydia's daughter. She has so much versatility that she doesn't seem to ever have a "bad" role, and she doesn't start now.
However, besides the cast, the sequel doesn't give the audience much to work with. The story is stupid with too many side plots, the graphics, while trying to match the cartoonish feel of the first movie, are awful, and the attempt to recapture the magic of the Day-o scene with a musical, broadway-type number set to Someone Left the Cake Out in the Rain falls as flat as a pancake.
A cameo by Danny Devito (Batman Returns) doesn't make up for casting Justin Theroux (Mulholland Drive), Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man), or Monica Bellucci (Deadpool). All three of them were annoying anytime they were on screen.
Tim Burton also decided to make Beetlejuice's entrance a big deal with a slow pan to a close-up of his face, as if the audience should start screaming and cheering the moment he is on screen for the first time. The problem is, we all knew he was going to be in the film and played by Keaton, so the outlandish buildup was lackluster and unnecessary.
In the end, 36 years wasn't enough time for this sequel to marinate, and I probably could have gone another 36 years without seeing it.
Grade: C-
