I was divided on the teaser for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the decades in the making sequel to Tim Burton’s 1988 classic, but the full trailer has me feeling hopeful that this won’t suck? There’s less memberberry juice in the full trailer, as it introduces some new characters, though there are still plenty of throwbacks for the nostalgia crowd (sandworms, Lydia’s red wedding dress, which I was OBSESSED with as a kid). It’s just a trailer, but maybe Burton & Co. actually found the middle ground between honoring the original and doing something new?
We’re just at the start of summer, but I won’t lie, the autumn vibes of this trailer had me from the first. Autumn is favorite season, I love a good coat and pair of boots, Astrid Deetz’s wardrobe is deeply enviable. I also like the little snippet of Winona Ryder and Jenna Ortega interacting as mother and daughter, both when Lydia sees her own teenage ennui reflected in her daughter, and when Astrid blithely disobeys her mother and brings Betelgeuse back to the realm of the living.
We also get to see new characters played by Monica Bellucci, Willem Dafoe, Justin Theroux, a shrunken head guy played by “Bob”, I like the look of all the new characters. Monica Bellucci, in particular, looks spectacular, but then, when doesn’t she? And, of course, there is Michael Keaton returning as Betelgeuse. Even in just a couple minutes, you can feel how much fun he’s having.
It’s a little boring for Betelgeuse to still be stuck on Lydia 30+ years later, but this an entrenched trope of legacy sequels—not too much can change. It still has to be recognizable as part of the original thing. So while it might be more interesting if we found a Betelgeuse who didn’t remember Lydia at all after leaving a huge mark on her life, or some such, I understand this is asking too much. Legacy sequels almost always are an exercise in compromise and managing expectations (notable exception: the Mad Max franchise). Keeping my expectations set at “there will be lots of callbacks and characters won’t have fundamentally changed”, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice does not look like the worst of the lot. I like this a trailer way more than I did the one for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.
What does stick out, though, are the special effects. Some are obviously practical, like the shrunken guy’s head, others are CG, like Betelgeuse’s eyes popping out. A lot of it looks a little too clean. This is the natural consequence of evolving technology—computer effects are lightyears better than they were in the 1980s, when they were rudimentary, at best. Of course, this new tool allows Burton & Co. to do tricks they could not have done—at least not so cheaply and easily—in the Eighties. And the reality is, computer effects are usually cheaper than practical ones, another reason to use CG over in-camera trickery.
But the result is that in moments, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has a smooth cartoon look that sits ill on the otherwise grimy, grungy aesthetic of death and decay. The film is not finished and Burton and his VFX team could, conceivably, tweak these effects to look a little less, er, Scooby Doo. I hope they do, because Beetlejuice holds up really well, thanks in large part to the practical effects and elements like stop motion animation—it has a timeless look that cannot be impacted by pixel degradation or evolving technology that renders the cutting edge obsolete in six months.
The practical stuff in this trailer looks great, textured and worn and cool. But the CG stuff leaps out, too shiny, too smooth, too slick. I WANT to like this movie, and though this trailer is an improvement on the teaser, there are still a couple red flags I can’t ignore. Also, the fact that it’s opening during the overlap of TIFF and the Venice Film Festival, when most critics will be otherwise occupied and, depending on when they screen this, maybe not even available to review it, is NOT a confidence builder. Good movies rarely open during the fall festivals.
