Okay so I have to go off memory here, and will probably add more stuff to this review when I see it again later on this week, but I just got back from an early showing of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and my short review is this: this was literally the best sequel they could have made to this movie.
I'm going to kind of review this a little bit out of order because there were a bunch of different plot things that were happening throughout the movie that were weaving in and out. One bad criticism I have about this film is that it felt like they tried to stuff way too much movie into like 2 hours. It could have used another half hour easily and it wouldn't have wore out its welcome.
Pros: not a lot of nostalgia baiting, solid stories, old school claymation and practical effects were used a lot more than CGI, the ghosts in the afterlife are fucking awesome, the movie actually taking place during the Halloween season is great touch, better dance sequence in this one, Betelgeuse explaining his backstory in Italian and it being an obviously different voice speaking perfect Italian and Lydia giving birth to a baby Betelgeuse.
Cons: Jenna Ortega as Astrid is fucking insufferable (props to Tim Burton for using wokeness to make her an annoying bitch though) the movie should have had more Betelgeuse. Monica Bellucci's character was criminally underutilized, it's a LITTLE more tame compared to the original, and they stuffed probably 4 hours worth of movie in a 2-hour time frame.
Overall rating: B+
This was legit the best sequel they could've made but it could've been longer. Should have split it up into two movies and it could've slowed down and took its time.
I'm going to kind of review this a little bit out of order because there were a bunch of different plot things that were happening throughout the movie that were weaving in and out. One bad criticism I have about this film is that it felt like they tried to stuff way too much movie into like 2 hours. It could have used another half hour easily and it wouldn't have wore out its welcome.
So the movie takes place in real time after the original. So after 36 years, Lydia and her mom have to come back to Winter River because Lydia's father died after a shark attack lol. (Funny story they actually had to write him out of the movie because he got caught with a 14 year old boy. Well I guess that's not so much funny as it is horrific but you know what I mean)
The part that made me laugh really hard about this movie was all these years later Lydia turned into a "Long Island medium" style television show chick who goes to people's haunted houses and communicates with the dead. She has a daughter named Astrid who hates her because she thinks her mom is a grifter and that there's no such thing as ghosts.
Astrid's dad is dead and one of the reasons that Astrid hates Lydia is because she apparently can't see her father. Later Astrid ends up meeting this kid and basically falling for him and he seems too good to be true. So he invites her over and it turns out that he's a ghost. He murdered his parents and then as he was running from the cops he snapped his neck accidentally. So Astrid has her mom's powers to see the dead after all.
So the ghost kid basically fuckin tricks Lydia's daughter into giving him her soul. She gets kidnapped into the afterlife.
You know what time it is.
Lydia knows there's only one person that can help save her daughter. She summons Betelgeuse, and he agrees to help her only if she keeps her promise to marry him. Betelgeuse never got over Lydia and it's really funny. Problem is Lydia is engaged to her manager who's a total TOOL. He kind of reminds me of Otho from the first movie. Later in the movie there's a psychiatric scene where Betelgeuse hits him with truth serum and he admits to Lydia that he only wants to marry her for money.
So Beetlejuice kills the kid (this movie is actually pretty fucked up in a good way. I was expecting a lot of woke trash, but it's way more violent and way less PC than you would think a movie from 2024 would be. It's less risque than the original, but I'm kind of surprised they got away with PG-13)
Now this is where Willem Dafoe's character comes in. His name was like Wolf Jackman or something funny like that but he was a shitty B movie actor and now he's a detective who's after Betelgeuse for bringing a human into the afterlife. He used to do his own stunts in his movies and he took a grenade to the head and died so his skull and brain are exposed on one side of his head lol. You can really tell Willem Dafoe had fun doing this.
Another problem is Delores (Monica Bellucci looks amazing in this. She's hot and she's all stapled up because she got chopped up. Sally from nightmare before Christmas vibes) they actually showed Betelgeuse's backstory which was really funny because you find out that he was an Italian grave robber who fell in love with a plague doctor who ended up being leader of a soul stealing cult. The best cameo in this movie is Danny DeVito who Dolores picks up by the neck and sucks his soul out of his face. Both her and Lydia's fiance are killed by a sandworm. Basically Dolores only shows up a couple of times demanding where Beetlejuice is and looking hot sucking out people's souls.
So Lydia leaves the afterlife and it's getting ready to marry her douchebag boyfriend at the church. The juice ain't having that.
It does get explained to him after a really funny wedding scene that he broke the contract of Lydia having to marry him because she had to marry him so that he could cross over. When he brought Lydia into the afterlife, it voided the promise out.
They say his name 3 times and he is sent back.
Oh also Lydia's mom ends up in the afterlife because she died in the movie doing a performance art piece with venomous snakes and she gets bit by them.
The part that made me laugh really hard about this movie was all these years later Lydia turned into a "Long Island medium" style television show chick who goes to people's haunted houses and communicates with the dead. She has a daughter named Astrid who hates her because she thinks her mom is a grifter and that there's no such thing as ghosts.
Astrid's dad is dead and one of the reasons that Astrid hates Lydia is because she apparently can't see her father. Later Astrid ends up meeting this kid and basically falling for him and he seems too good to be true. So he invites her over and it turns out that he's a ghost. He murdered his parents and then as he was running from the cops he snapped his neck accidentally. So Astrid has her mom's powers to see the dead after all.
So the ghost kid basically fuckin tricks Lydia's daughter into giving him her soul. She gets kidnapped into the afterlife.
You know what time it is.
Lydia knows there's only one person that can help save her daughter. She summons Betelgeuse, and he agrees to help her only if she keeps her promise to marry him. Betelgeuse never got over Lydia and it's really funny. Problem is Lydia is engaged to her manager who's a total TOOL. He kind of reminds me of Otho from the first movie. Later in the movie there's a psychiatric scene where Betelgeuse hits him with truth serum and he admits to Lydia that he only wants to marry her for money.
So Beetlejuice kills the kid (this movie is actually pretty fucked up in a good way. I was expecting a lot of woke trash, but it's way more violent and way less PC than you would think a movie from 2024 would be. It's less risque than the original, but I'm kind of surprised they got away with PG-13)
Now this is where Willem Dafoe's character comes in. His name was like Wolf Jackman or something funny like that but he was a shitty B movie actor and now he's a detective who's after Betelgeuse for bringing a human into the afterlife. He used to do his own stunts in his movies and he took a grenade to the head and died so his skull and brain are exposed on one side of his head lol. You can really tell Willem Dafoe had fun doing this.
Another problem is Delores (Monica Bellucci looks amazing in this. She's hot and she's all stapled up because she got chopped up. Sally from nightmare before Christmas vibes) they actually showed Betelgeuse's backstory which was really funny because you find out that he was an Italian grave robber who fell in love with a plague doctor who ended up being leader of a soul stealing cult. The best cameo in this movie is Danny DeVito who Dolores picks up by the neck and sucks his soul out of his face. Both her and Lydia's fiance are killed by a sandworm. Basically Dolores only shows up a couple of times demanding where Beetlejuice is and looking hot sucking out people's souls.
So Lydia leaves the afterlife and it's getting ready to marry her douchebag boyfriend at the church. The juice ain't having that.
It does get explained to him after a really funny wedding scene that he broke the contract of Lydia having to marry him because she had to marry him so that he could cross over. When he brought Lydia into the afterlife, it voided the promise out.
They say his name 3 times and he is sent back.
Oh also Lydia's mom ends up in the afterlife because she died in the movie doing a performance art piece with venomous snakes and she gets bit by them.
Pros: not a lot of nostalgia baiting, solid stories, old school claymation and practical effects were used a lot more than CGI, the ghosts in the afterlife are fucking awesome, the movie actually taking place during the Halloween season is great touch, better dance sequence in this one, Betelgeuse explaining his backstory in Italian and it being an obviously different voice speaking perfect Italian and Lydia giving birth to a baby Betelgeuse.
Cons: Jenna Ortega as Astrid is fucking insufferable (props to Tim Burton for using wokeness to make her an annoying bitch though) the movie should have had more Betelgeuse. Monica Bellucci's character was criminally underutilized, it's a LITTLE more tame compared to the original, and they stuffed probably 4 hours worth of movie in a 2-hour time frame.
Overall rating: B+
This was legit the best sequel they could've made but it could've been longer. Should have split it up into two movies and it could've slowed down and took its time.
