Jimmy Webb must be tickled by the fact that somebody successfully concocted a plot point to the nonsensical lyrics he wrote for “MacArthur Park.”
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| When the escalating supernatural chaos subsides for a bit, Lydia (Winona Ryder, right) and her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) enjoy a bonding moment while looking at an old photo album. |
All the familiar elements are once again in play, from the orchestral drum-beat of Danny Elfman’s title theme, to cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos’ disorienting opening montage, which eerily blurs the line between bucolic, small-town community and a tabletop miniature of same.
Burton and his writers — Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and Seth Grahame-Smith — have enhanced the ookiness and playful gore, while also adding a degree of danger. The first film may have been all in good (if zany) fun, but this one has a genuinely menacing undertone.
Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) has parlayed her earlier experiences into an enormously successful media career, as a professional ghost-chaser. Her manager, Rory (Justin Theroux), is an insufferably snooty fashion plate who fancies himself the trendiest and most sensitive guy on the planet. He’s also in love with Lydia, which — to say the least — seems an odd pairing.
The unexpected death of Lydia’s father (played by Jeffrey Jones, in the first film) prompts her return to the long-shuttered family home in bucolic Winter River. She’s joined by her mother, Delia (Catherine O’Hara), and moody, rebellious teenage daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega, immediately recognized from television’s Wednesday). The girl is all but estranged from her mother, and with good reason, having been essentially ignored while Lydia focused on her flourishing career.
Astrid has an additional, quite understandably reason for her sullen melancholy; her father — Lydia’s husband — long ago disappeared under mysterious circumstances. As a result, Astrid now has lost both beloved father figures.
On top of which, as a dedicated activist and environmentalist, the pragmatic girl doesn’t believe in ghosts. (She’s in for a surprise...)
Meanwhile, in Afterlife Central, way down below, the balefully malevolent Delores (Monica Bellucci) reassembles herself, after having been chopped into bits centuries earlier: easily the most grotesquely ghastly sequence Burton ever concocted. Turns out she was Beetlejuice’s lover, way back in the day, until their unhealthy relationship hit an, um, unfortunate snag.
Now that she’s back, and possessed of über-creepy soul-sucking powers, she’s determined to pay Beetlejuice back in kind ... and woe to those who get in her way.
Coincidentally, Lydia has been having visions of that same demon, because Beetlejuice is trying to get back to the living world. He’s had enough of the clerical nonsense of his Afterlife office duties, where he’s assisted by Bob (Nick Kellington) and a staff of identical, bizarre lumbering figures with shrunken heads (a nod to the demon’s fate at the end of the first film).
All these machinations serve as a template for a fresh onslaught of impudently morbid, outrageous, and even tasteless set-pieces: the exaggerated bureaucratic nightmare of the Afterlife’s Waiting Room, with recent arrivals having suffered wildly horrific deaths; Delores’ increasingly lethal encounters; the oddly sinister tabletop model of the town, in the Deetz family home’s attic; a hilarious Afterlife mode of conveyance to the Great Beyond, dubbed the Soul Train (cue another cute musical touch); Beetlejuice’s vulgar one-liners and disgusting behavior; and a very twisted nod to 1974’s It’s Alive.
The adorably retro, stop-motion sandworm also makes a welcome — and pivotal — return ... and everything climaxes in a dog-nuts finale, which makes side-splitting use of the aforementioned “MacArthur Park.”
One cannot judge this film’s performances in the usual way, since almost everybody is so deliberately, extravagantly over-the-top. Ryder wanders about in a constant state of wide-eyed shock, until mother bear instincts prompt resolute action; O’Hara’s Delia, still a narcissistic performance artist, is blissfully, intolerably vain.
Keaton makes the most of his mischievous grin and arch running commentary; Theroux’s Rory is so excruciatingly pompous, that you want to reach into the screen and smack him.
Belluci’s Delores is flat-out scary.
Willem Dafoe has an amusing role as Wolf Jackson, a former actor proud to have done all his stunts while starring as television’s tough-as-nails Frank Hardballer ... until that devotion to authenticity cost him his life. He’s now head of the Afterlife Crimes Unit.
Burn Gorman is quietly absurd as a priest given to oblique homilies, and Danny DeVito — all but unrecognized, beneath makeup designer Christine Blundell’s handiwork — pops up as an Afterlife janitor.
Ortega, in deliberate contrast, persuasively conveys Astrid’s intelligence and insight, along with an undercurrent of vulnerability and despair. She’s at loose ends, and lost amid the surrounding gaggle of burlesques, until — having temporarily fled her family entourage — she chances to meet Jeremy (Arthur Conti), a Winter River peer with a warm smile and sympathetic ear. Flirty sparks fly: just the dose of “ordinariness” that she needs.
All these antics are enhanced — propelled, actually, at bullet-train speed — by Elfman’s wildly cheeky orchestral score. Yes, the Jamaican folk song “Day-O” also makes a welcome return, albeit not sung by Harry Belafonte. And sharp-eared listeners with good musical memories will know what’s coming, when one of film composer Pino Donaggio’s haunting melodies unexpected rises in the soundtrack.
This film is wild, wacky fun, from start to finish. If it took Burton this long to orchestrate a sequel worthy of its predecessor, the wait has been worthwhile.
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