Beetlejuice Beetlejuice | Movie Review

the long delayed sequel to Beetlejuice drops in theaters this weekend so let's talk about [Music] it hi my name is Sean and I love to talk about movies and TV way too much with that in mind go ahead and join me down below in the comment section let me know what did you think about Beetle Juice Beetle Juice and give me that context are you a huge fan of the original or you kind of new to this franchise as for me I've always kind of enjoyed the original Beetle Juice but it's never been a movie that I absolutely love actually my primary experience with Beetlejuice is the early 9s animated show that I watched what every Saturday morning whenever it aired so I'm familiar with Beetlejuice I've enjoyed Beetlejuice but this movie wasn't one of my most anticipated films of the year or anything like that I was just kind of curious about it but long delayed sequels kind of had of a bad rap for not being able to recapture the magic uh comedy can be very timely and it's been over 5 years so was the movie able to recapture the magic or did something get lost in the long delayed production let's get started with the good and I'm very happy to say that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice absolutely is able to recapture the chaotic energy of the original Katon Burton the other returning cast members are able to just slip right back into their roles bring that same energy level that same randomness without it feeling forced Michael Keaton of course is great as Beetlejuice but you always fear when you have someone who initially plays a role in their mid-30s they come back when they're in their 70s will they be able to kind of pull that off does something get lost where they can't just channel that the same way as they could when they were literally half as old as they currently are in particular with a character with as much energy and a youthfulness of sorts that Beetlejuice has and he's just able to pull it off like he hasn't skipped the beat as if this was shot back in 1989 he's just absolutely able to still do it Katherine O'Hara returns as the stepmother and they're able to like build off of all of the weird quirkiness of her characterization from the first film her weird relationship with own a writer obsession with art it like Builds on all of that stuff but it like matures the relationship because now when own a ryer 50 years old and so then they've been had a relationship as adults family relationship there for a long time and so they have much more kind of mature conversations without it losing any of the awkwardness or her peculiar Behavior it amplifies all the weirdness of her character and she's just able to like sell these just outrageous ridiculous things that she's doing uh wiona writer is kind of the more subtle character in the movie which is kind of interesting the way that plays out uh they build off of where her charact her character's abilities in the original film they they build that out and play it out and it's kind of this pivot pivotal thing into her what her adult life has looked like her career as well as her relationship with her daughter who doesn't believe that she can do the things that she can do which then leads to Jenna Ortega who is the this generation's Christina RI this generation's wown a writer and she's stepping very much into that role and is able to pull it off and what I find interesting about Jenna Ortega and so many of the characters that she's played is that so many of the characters on page are frustrating characters to me that I find kind of irritating but she's able to kind of make them interesting endearing character despite the qualities they have that can make them feel a little bit at arms length from the audience and that's just kind of that that spark that magic that she has and she just kind of fits right in uh William defo has a side character in here that he gets just to ham it up it's a lot a lot of fun and I wouldn't say that there were any performances that were off in the movie there are too many characters but we'll get to that later on in this review another thing to talk about with this movie is I felt that it had better story momentum where you're more invested in what's kind of going on with our lead characters their character arcs as well as the plot that they get pulled into in the original film I I didn't find Gina Davis and Alec Baldwin's characters all that interesting and their specific plot to like scare the family out of the house it's not one that you like naturally gravitate towards and go oh that's a super interesting plot I wonder if they're able going to be able to succeed that was just the setup for all the other interesting things around them and I felt like in this movie our main characters that are driving the plot are interesting captivating you are invested in their character Arc as well as the plot that they're invested in and the specific plot them plots themselves have more Stakes more urgency to them so you feel that forward momentum that you just didn't really feel that much in the original was kind of just kind of going from Little episode to little episode about their you know afterlife Antics this one has things that you're working towards it very early on sets up things we like oh I wonder how that's going to pay off where's that going oh man that's not going to be good and they keep adding more and more things throughout the movie which we'll get back to that in the negative section but for me I was a lot more invested in this plot than I was in the plot of the original film along kind of these same same lines this movie is able to kind of explore death grief Letting Go it kind of deals with family Connections in all of these different ways daughter to a father a stepdaughter to stepmother over the decades marriages like it touches on a lot of these family connections and it's dealing with death in the afterlife and letting go and while it's just as random and chaotic it's not like it sits down to ponder The Human Experience but it actually does kind of have some thematic exploration going on where you can see kind of these themes running all throughout the movie um and so it just has a little bit more kind of meaning to it without feeling like we're drifting away from the chaos that you want from a beetle juu movie and for me that was an improvement on the plot level on kind of the character Arc the exploration level it was better than the original film and final one I want to talk about on here it feels old school and practical where even where they go into some of the afterlife stuff and the The Waiting rooms and everything so many Legacy sequels and things like that they try and you know upgrade it to the 21st century and fix those 80s films but this movie knows that's what we loved about the original one was that very specific aesthetic that vibe that look the models the um you stop motion esque nature of the sandworm that's the exact charm of it you don't need to fix that that's the hook that's the selling point and this movie recaptures all of that while expanding it and adding kind of new elements into it so as someone that isn't the biggest Beetlejuice fan I had good time with this movie and there's several ways in which I felt like this movie improved upon the original at least for me that someone that doesn't have as many ties and emotional connections to the original film I had a good time with it from there let's move on to the mixed aspects of the film and as we go into this these aren't necessarily good or bad things these are just other things you need to discuss with the film first one that comes to mind inherently Beetle Juice is kind of Niche it's spicy food it's something that a specific group of people like this type of humor this blend of zaniness wackiness goofiness with Gore and dark humor the crazy costumes some people love that and other people just don't get it it's that type of movie so there's going to be people that just go I don't get it this is too weird it's too wacky it's too ADHD it's all over the place it's not for me and that's okay like for me I I kind of get it I kind of enjoy it but this just isn't something that I inherently love it's I can be amused by it but it's not like this is something I'm going to re-explore a whole bunch I'm fine to re-watch it from time to time I'm glad that my kids are excited to see it but it's just moderately amusing for me second question I've had people ask me what ages can go see Beetlejuice Beetlejuice I specifically had someone ask if there six-year-old that loves the original film can go and watch this film I'm going to take my 10 and 12-year-olds to go see this film we actually got costumes for them to wear I would say this film very much pushes the boundaries of the PG-13 rating there is an F bomb in it like in the original I felt that the gore was a little bit more intense in this film there's more kind of creepy images in it perhaps that's because this was a new experience so every time it did kind of a shocking gory image it was a surprise to me versus the original where I've been watching that film for 35 years now my 5-year-old turns six next week I wouldn't take her to see Beetlejuice Beetlejuice I have no hesitations about taking my two older children I would say it's a little bit more intense than the original film if you're worried about that you should in particular for like a six-year-old you should go watch it first see which things you think they wouldn't be appropriate for them then take your child to go see it from there let's move on to the bad really there's just one big bad that comes to mind with this film in the positives I talked about how the movie has a stronger plot overall and More Story momentum moving things forward that was a good thing but it also has a lot more plot lines which was a bad thing this film simply has too many plot lines every major character has their own main plotline then every side character has their own subplot and every one of our main characters has their own romance or marriage plotline and so there's just a lot going on all of the time very early on in the film Monica Belushi's character is introduced and it keeps cutting back to her like we're building up to some big gigantic thing and it it never really fully pays off and then the plot line that does kind of drive a lot of the action forward I don't think it kicks into motion until the movie's like halfway through and so it just keeps adding plot lines and twists and subplots throughout the entire runtime like mono belucci is introduced very early on in the film as sort of the main villain but she's just kind of like lingering on in the background in tied to her plotline William def's character gets introduced and he has kind of his own sub plot that's sort of tied to her plotline but not really and then the main plot line that gives it its forward momentum dealing with Jenna Ortega isn't introduced until like the movie halfway through and so it's that sort of film where you just keep introducing plot lines until you're like 75% of the way through the movie and that captures the chaotic craziness of this franchise that remains true to the franchise but for movie with this runtime it just means that the important plot lines are short changed we waste a bunch of time on subplots that don't really go anywhere or plot lines that don't go anywhere and that time is stolen from the plot lines and characters that actually matter and so you kind of get to the end of it and you're like oh I had a lot of fun I enjoyed that but this this this all kind of felt underdeveloped and what was this even doing in the movie where was that going almost as if there's some plot threads that were from an earlier draft that they forgot to cut out of the current version of the film real quick before I give you my final thoughts be sure to join me down below in the comments section let me know what did you think about Beetlejuice Beetlejuice also come back this weekend I will be ranking all of the Tim Burton directed films I've been working on this for a couple of months now there were a lot of firsttime watches in there so I'm excited to talk about his filmography overall if if you enjoy the first Beetlejuice you're probably going to have a really good time with this movie and you'll probably enjoy this movie more than I did as just kind of the Casual viewer of the original film I had a good time with this movie I think it improved on a few things a few things didn't work quite as well but it was a good time at the movies overall it's a B on the entertainment scale a 7 out of 10 and you should see this one in the theater if you're a Beetle Juice fan if you're not a big Beetle Juice fan maybe just wait to stream this one in a couple of months be sure to come back in a few days to check out my ranking of all of Tim Burton's films thank you so much for watching and keep talking movies and TV too much bye-bye