For a filmmaker who's conjured up vibrant visions of death like no other, it's perhaps fitting that Tim Burton has felt like he's recently been fighting tooth and nail for a spark of life in his cinematic creations.
If you've ventured out to the theaters to see one of his films in the past decade or more, there's a good chance you've been baffled by his more perplexing takes on everything from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to the recent Dumbo. It's been like seeing a filmmaker keep making the "one for them" only to forget the subsequent "one for me" of the saying. And yet, perhaps despite ourselves, out we go, the faithful holding out hope the Burton of old would make an appearance. Instead, too often, we've endured a rough run of films that were all the wrong type of odd in how obligatory they felt. Yet we still go out, hoping for a resurrection. For those of us who remain believers in Burton, much of that faith has remained because of one word (which you mustn't risk saying more than once) that still echoes in our minds: Beetlejuice.
Yes, it was Burton's 1988 film, his second feature after the similarly classic Pee-wee's Big Adventure, which is still his most funny, visually inventive and playfully macabre work to date. Revisiting it now on the cusp of a sequel, the cheekily titled Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, only reaffirms its genius. It's a film that makes the most of a confined setting through boundless creativity and plenty of darkly clever scenes that, much like the ghosts that populate it, haven't grown old. More than that, there is a madcap and anarchic energy to the entire experience with Michael Keaton's titular trickster operating on just the right wavelength to make it all sing. Taking us deep into the great beyond and back again, it's so wonderfully joyous you almost forget what Burton's films have been like of late. Almost... but not quite.
For those who think this is harsh, the filmmaker himself has spoken of his recent work in similar terms. At the Venice Film Festival press conference for the world premiere of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Burton said he had "sort of lost myself a bit" and that his latest was "a kind of getting back to the things I love doing, the way I love doing it and with people I love doing it with." While this could be dismissed by the more cynical as merely a way to sell a cash-grab sequel, there was a frankness to the filmmaker's words that felt like he too had been right there with us in the theater wondering what had happened to him. We too have seen all the trappings of his recent works and have felt lost wondering where was the Burton who went from Beetlejuice to helming the best duo of Batman movies? Where was the filmmaker who never once let the fact that he was working with established intellectual property hold him back from leaving his mark? We've always remembered, and it seems Burton has too.
Whether we may see him again or just get burned again, we can always be glad we'll have Beetlejuice. From the way it dances through a world of death to the close when it levitates to the music of the late Harry Belafonte, it's an all-timer that's worth keeping the faith in. Regardless of whether Burton and company can recapture its glory, it's just about as good of a film to chase after as one could hope for. It's a powerful thing for a film to keep us venturing out to see his works because of the magic on display from decades prior. With all the practical effects and gleefully mean-spirited jokes, it's a true wonder that feels like it couldn't be made in quite the same way by anyone now, maybe even including Burton himself.
In a movie landscape where so much can feel disposable in how it plays safe and toes the line, we can be glad that we'll always have the maniac that is Beetlejuice. No matter how many new releases can feel dead on arrival and then vanish completely from the mind, it is there to give movies new life by guiding us back through the darkness. Hell, it may even reinstill that same love of creation in Burton himself as he returns to its world. If there's one film with plenty of spirit to spare, it will always and forever be this one. ♦
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice opens in theaters on Sept. 6.
