ON BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE
The sequel to the 1988 cult hit, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice unspools inelegantly on the screen for 105 minutes and then credits roll. The movie is a jumble of unfinished plots and pitches, which are never explained or fleshed out, but they happen at the audience in an attempt to trick them into thinking there's a coherent movie in front of them.
Sadly, everything needed for a cool sequel movie was on screen but the script didn't want that. While most of the original Deetz actors play the same characters -- obviously not Jeffrey Jones -- but also lacking Geena Davis and Alex Baldwin -- with Jenna Ortega as the daughter of Lydia Deetz. The problem is that there is no major antagonist -- the role handled by Beetlejuice and the Lydia's parents in the first movie. Without a defined obstacle or conflict to build a plot on, the movie slides along with side quests and silly visual puns. Rather than have a distinct villain, the movie juggles Beetlejuice's former wife, a teen ladykiller and Willem Dafoe's bureaucrat but without coherent arcs -- they enter, they occupy some scenes and most of them converge at the muddle at a church at the end where stuff happens. It's movie made from cameo appearances glued together with worldbuilding and nostalgia.
There's a video online of Southpark's Matt Stone and Trey Parker in a lecture about scriptwriting. Parker states that every scene needs to be linked by "But then" or "therefore" which means "but then" the scope of the stakes caused by the initial problem increases or "therefore" the characters suffer the consequences of their actions. The third mode, Parker and Stone warn, is if "and then" links your scenes, your show is doomed slop. Stone highlights their warning by explaining to the students that if you watch a movie and you feel bored or unexcited, the movie's scenes are linked by "and then". This is the core problem with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is an uncooked mess probably because the producers wanted to play it safe. The humour is trite. The characters are flat and only react to events that happen to them. Maybe the director wrote the movie during filming but I recommend you watch the first movie again. I rate this movie one Beetlejuice out of five Beetlejuices.















