Weekend Watch - Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
With Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the vision is there, the visuals are fully there, the acting is mostly there, but the story is so all over the place that the film falls well short of its potential.
Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is this week’s latest legacy sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the follow-up to Tim Burton’s 1988 cult classic Beetlejuice. The potential surprise September blockbuster sees the return of Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, and Catherine O’Hara reprising their roles from the original, joined by Jenna Ortega, Justin Theroux, Willem Dafoe, Monica Bellucci, and Arthur Conti in this rich ensemble of quirky new and returning characters. After opening the Venice Film Festival last week, the film released in theaters this weekend. Let’s get into it.
Letter Grade: C; it’s the same energy as the first with less narrative cohesion, so it’s fine.
Should you Watch This Film? If you love the original, you’ll probably love this one as well. If Tim Burton’s vibe is your whole deal, then this’ll check that box well. If you have no interest in either of the aforementioned things, this is not for you.
Why?
The original Beetlejuice was the very definition of a cult classic – lots of great practical effects and wacky production design with some weirdness all around wrapped in a decently poignant story about ghosts – and its sequel finds itself in those same shoes. On most levels, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice matches the quirky fun of the original while mostly justifying its existence with some new fun set pieces. Unfortunately, the weakness of the original – a thin story – is all the more prevalent in the sequel. Less attachment, too many plots, but fantastic production design are the hallmarks of this legacy sequel, sure to please fans of the original well enough without setting itself apart as some new innovation in filmmaking.
The main cast (Ryder, Keaton, O’Hara, and Ortega) all perform admirably in their duties, with the original returners doing a good job of reprising and building on their characters from the first film and Jenna Ortega showing some versatility as the grounded activist daughter of Ryder’s Lydia Deetz, now the host of her own television show about speaking to ghosts. Keaton remains the highlight of the film, bringing all the ridiculousness of the iconic character that made the first film so successful, once again playing a highly entertaining and gross version of himself. O’Hara is once again in her most outlandish form, having lost no steps as the unique artist Delia. The supporting cast are a bit more hit and miss with Monica Bellucci feeling almost wasted as an intimidating, yet highly underutilized, villain hunting down Beetlejuice for revenge. Willem Dafoe gets to do a bit more and offers some of the most consistent laughs in the film as deceased actor, turned afterlife cop Wolf Jackson. Justin Theroux is inconsistent but goofily melodramatic enough to make for a decent complication in the plot as Lydia’s manager.
Visually, the film refreshingly maintains its primarily practical effects, featuring a plethora of excellent costume designs, stop motion animation, and wild sets that help sell the film’s griminess, which simply wouldn’t have worked with how most of the modern VFX have been going in mainstream films. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t really back up the visual promise of the film, giving us a whole lot of ideas and scenes that never really cohere into something that feels like an overarching narrative. The emotional moments don’t come close to landing because of how many storylines are going on around them, reducing the film’s impact and poignancy, and tragically, the jokes aren’t consistently hitting enough to warrant such an incoherent collection of plots.
With Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the vision is there, the visuals are fully there, the acting is mostly there, but the story is so all over the place that the film falls well short of its potential. It’ll be a crowd-pleaser for those seeking new Tim Burton content and/or those who loved the original, but it doesn’t have enough to say or deliver on enough of its comedic or quirky promise to really be a must-see film for all audiences.
Weekend Watch - Scream VI
Ultimately, Scream VI is a solid outing for the new “core four” of the franchise, establishing them while providing an entertaining, if mildly flawed, “sequel to the requel”.
Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is Scream VI, the latest film in the wildly successful meta slasher franchise. This film takes the franchise to the Big Apple, following Sam (Melissa Barrera), Tara (Jenna Ortega), Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown), and Chad (Mason Gooding) from last year’s soft reboot, Scream, as they go to college in NYC and are again pursued by the Ghostface Killer. The film again sees the return of Courteney Cox as reporter Gale Weathers and Hayden Panettiere as Scream 4 survivor Kirby Reed, now an FBI agent. Josh Segarra, Jack Champion, Liana Liberato, Devyn Nekoda, and Dermot Mulroney join the cast as newcomers to help round out the roster of potential killers. Let’s get into it.
Letter Grade: B+/A-; it all depends on your willingness to buy into the nature of the Scream franchise and on how much you enjoyed last year’s reboot – there’s good gore and fun twists either way though.
Should you Watch This Film? If there’s nothing you enjoy about slashers, then Scream VI probably isn’t for you; otherwise, it’s a great time at the theater and entirely worth your time.
Why?
Scream VI continues in the footsteps of last year’s reboot, focusing on the new characters while sticking with the meta humor and intense slasher violence that have made the films so popular, and it works even better here as the new characters start to come into their own, even if the absence of Neve Campbell’s Sydney does put a bit of a damper on things. The violence is bigger and more intense than in past installments, amping up the gore to new levels in places, making the requisite fake-out deaths even less believable than usual. The performances in the reveal moments are over-the-top in ways that would make William Shatner proud, but even that feels true to the nature of the franchise – making light of itself and other horror films with a solid blend of parody and homage.
Scream VI’s story feels a bit more contained (even set in the nation’s most populous city) than 5 or 3, focusing most of its action in three locations, allowing the characters to play off of each other and establish themselves as the focus beyond simple connections to the past films. Obviously, much of Melissa Barrera’s Sam’s development focuses on her connection to Billy Loomis, but since it’s all out in the open now, she manages to imbue her character with a deeper sense of self, no longer shrouded in mystery. Jenna Ortega’s Tara continues her streak of rebellious youth characters, but here, she comes into her own as a proverbial “scream queen”, putting herself less in the shoes of the younger sister character and more on the level of a true “final girl” with a performance totally unlike her characters in either Wednesday or X. Even siblings Mindy and Chad manage to establish themselves as something a bit more than one-note, both through romantic ties. Mindy’s knowledge of horror tropes remains endearing, but her genuinely emotional connection to the new character of Anika gives her a bit more depth. Similarly, Chad is no longer just the jock nephew of Randy Meeks, he is now an emotionally invested potential love interest for Tara. Altogether, this feels like a more establishing film than 5 and promises an interesting future for the franchise.
On some level, the Scream films do seem to have become a bit predictable, and Scream VI is no different. It offers a phenomenal opening scene, playing with the tropes of the past films in new and interesting ways before morphing into a fairly telegraphed whodunnit. This predictability might also stem from my marathon of the rest of the films that I held with my wife last week, putting all the twists and connections fresh in our minds, but suffice it to say that we were only mildly surprised at the inevitable third act reveal. Knowing what was up didn’t really do much to detract from our enjoyment because they did a good job of making us question what we thought we knew thanks to fake-out deaths and red herrings, including a great tease for a surprise return.
Ultimately, Scream VI is a solid outing for the new “core four” of the franchise, establishing them while providing an entertaining, if mildly flawed, “sequel to the requel” that lands somewhere on the level of 4 and 5 in terms of greatness, better than 3 but not as good as the first two classic films. It’s a great time at the movies with a blend of jump-scares and gore that is sure to please most slasher fans without trying to do too much.