BEETLEJUICE
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1988 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: An incredibly forgettable film about
ghosts trying to scare away new owners of their house. The
very minimal plot is an excuse to load on piles of gratuitous
special effects that do very little for the story. Rating: -1.
Excuse me if this review is not very well constructed. I have to write it very, very quickly. I just saw BEETLEJUICE, an extremely forgettable fantasy film. So much so that even as I walked out of the theater, large pieces of the film were being forgotten forever. Why is BEETLEJUICE so forgettable? I guess because the producers had so much budget and so little story. It is not that it was a bad story. It was co-authored by Michael McDowell, one of the leading modern horror writers, but it was about four pages worth of story and the rest was just lathered-on special effects. Remembering the film entails remembering the list of special effects, mostly totally gratuitous, that were laid on at at various points in the minimal story.
The story of BEETLEJUICE involves...(oh, rats. What was it about? oh, yes!) a young couple who live in a rustic little town and love their old house. They are in a car accident and are killed. Now is this where they see the ghost with the shrunken head and the smoker who was charred to a cinder? No, I think that's later in the plot. Oh, well, it doesn't really matter. Anyway, they go back to their house and can get in but can't get out again. Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is where they had the alien landscape special effect and the giant sandworm. That's what they face if they leave the house. Wait, that doesn't make sense--they were just outside the house. Well, I guess making sense doesn't matter. And then, yes, that's it, some not very nice people buy the house and start to remodel it. The ghosts don't like that, so try to scare the new owners. Now is this where they rip their faces off altogether or is this where they just stretch their faces into funny shapes? Doesn't matter, I guess. So where does Beetlejuice fit into this? Well, first off there is nobody named "Beetlejuice." There is someone named Betelgeuse, like the star, and that's pronounced "Beetle juice," but then why isn't the film called BETELGEUSE? Darned if I know! Anyway, Betelgeuse fits in later in the plot. But don't worry about the plot. The filmmakers didn't.
The star of the film is Geena Davis who is attractive enough to occasionally upstage the special effects. She may be familiar from television work or from her role in the remake of THE FLY. Alec Baldwin is forgettable as her husband. Jeffrey Jones as the new owner is used to being upstaged by special effects as in HOWARD THE DUCK. And Michael Keaton was on hand as (uh, give me a second), oh yes, in the title role. No, wait, there was nobody in the title role. Well, anyway, give this tournee of mediocre special effects a -1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper
mtgzz!leeper@rutgers.rutgers.edu
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