Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was one of September’s hottest movies, and Max and Ben both had conflicting opinions on the movie, but they decided to put aside their differences and come together to write this joint review. Enjoy the article and let us know your opinions on the movie in the comments!

A Totally Comprehensive Review of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: Ben Thom

Spoilers for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

I hate this movie. Every time I think about this movie, I hate it a little more. I’m not mad about BeetleJuice, BeetleJuice, I’m just disappointed. But why am I disappointed? Well…

The Characters.

The returning characters in this movie are shells of their former selves. Winona Ryder phones it in for the 90-minute runtime (which feels like 2+ hours.) Catherine O’Hara and Michael Keaton still shine, but something feels lost with their portrayal of these famous characters. The new characters fare far, far worse than the old. For one, the characters of Astrid, Jeremy (the neighbor boy) Wolf Jackson, Rory, and Delores(beetlejuice’s late wife) are underdeveloped as hell. Monica Belluci as Delores is the biggest offender here, as she serves little purpose in the story. Sure, she shows up at the start and is masquerading as the main antagonist. But she barely shows up throughout the movie and does nothing to move the plot forward, except make Beetlejuice scared. Without her, the movie would not change. I feel the same way about the character of Jeremy too, he serves barely any purpose after his introduction and simply acts as a device to move the plot forward, and then is dropped when they cannot think of anything more to do with the character. Every character in this movie makes me mad.

Dropped Plotlines and things I don’t like

Quick lighting round on this one. Here is every quickly forgotten/dropped plotline or thing that is bad in this movie.

The Maitlands (the ghosts from the first movie) do not appear in this movie because “they found a loophole and moved on.” …what? So that is your explanation for not having these incredibly popular and beloved characters to appear in the sequel?!

Lydia’s drug problem. Forgotten immediately after mentioned in the first scene. 

Astrid’s dead dad. He shows up and shows out after 2 scenes. 

Jeremy and Astrid have zero chemistry and he is killed immediately after his little side story is finished. 

Wolf Jackson is bad at his job. Like…he is so, so, so bad. 

Delores is not in 75% of the movie.

I genuinely despise the Beetlejuice Baby. It makes me uncomfortable and I think Tim Burton should be canceled for what he did to my eyes and my soul.

The entire climax of the movie is a “deus ex machina” of legal ramifications for Beetlejuice that we do not learn or know about before Astrid and Lydia use it to explode Beetlejuice. Yeah.

There is no falling action in this movie, and the ending of this movie doesn’t happen. It is a dream inside Lydia’s head. 

Finally, this movie moves too fast and feels like a fanfiction turned into a nightmare of a film.

Tim Burton is weird

To news sources, before this movie came out, Tim Burton claimed that he wanted to keep the character of Beetlejuice “politically incorrect.” Okay, Tim, we understand that you’re pandering to try to be cool and edgy, but it’s giving lame. Also, we need to talk about the Soul Train bit. It seems like Tim was trying to over-course correct with the backlash he has gotten for not casting many black actors in his movies, so he may have felt like this was a good idea. While I understand that the joke is amusing, it also shines a light on the fact that he has once again, cast no black leading actors.

Things I Like

There are many things I enjoy in this movie though. For one, the animated section about how the Grandpa died I thought was one of the funniest and most creative scenes in the whole movie, and it made me hope Tim Burton returns one day to the animation genre. I also thoroughly enjoy the costume and set design, as it seems like it’s pulled straight from the original movie. Finally, Every scene with Michael Keaton chewing the scenery had the theater probably mad at me for my annoying laughter. Plus, the hilarious flashback scenes with Beetlejuice that have a Spanish dub are a great creative choice.

So yeah. BeetleJuice BeetleJuice was not my favorite movie of all time. I think there is a good movie hidden in here somewhere, but it’s become so bogged down by forgotten plotlines and poor acting that it just becomes a slog of a film. Sorry Tim, maybe next time.

Maybe it’s time for another point of view…

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: A Strange, Wacky Return to Form: Max Knight

I agree with Ben on many things regarding Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, but my ultimate conclusion was that I enjoyed it. My first thoughts exiting the theater were “That may have not been a good film, but it was certainly a fun one,” a welcome thought when most “bad” movies I see nowadays simply just leave me feeling bored or empty. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice runs entirely on manic nonsense energy, where every scene either introduces a new plotline or resolves an old one in a way that’s often so fast as to be unsatisfying, but running on nonsense energy is not new for the series. The plot of the original Beetlejuice was essentially just a sandbox for Burton to play around in with his gothic absurdist design and over-the-top practical effects, filled to the brim with random musical numbers and afterlife bureaucracy worldbuilding and spooky hijinx. In the original, the titular character doesn’t even show up until halfway through– Beetlejuice has always been focused on having fun with the cinematic medium first and narrative strength second, and though this sequel certainly does it with less deftness and less vigor than its predecessor, the spirit is certainly still there. After decades of delivering ugly CGI slop in Disney Live action remakes like Alice in Wonderland and Dumbo, Burton has finally returned to the practical sets and prosthetics of the original, instilling a tangible, exciting feeling to the proceedings that Burton’s stay in Disneyland has long failed to incite. Keaton is still animated and perfectly vulgar as the titular Bio-Exorcist. Most importantly of all, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice isn’t afraid to be silly. There’s still just as much goofy costumes and out-of-place musical numbers and weird non-sequiturs– this is a movie that knows what it is and indulges in it, which, compared to other legacy sequels to 80s comedies like Ghostbusters: Afterlife that take their mythology deathly serious, is a welcome change. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has problems, yes. It may just play on the same techniques that made the first great, with little innovation, but at the end of the day, its only goal is for you to have fun. I, for one, did.