Say it once, say it twice, say it … no!
The characters of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” |
I saw “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” and it’s been a long time since I had this much fun at the cinema!
I’ll start
from the premise that I’m a fan of Tim Burton and I love “Beetlejuice”,
which is without a doubt the film I’ve watched the most times ever.
There was a period in the 90s when I knew practically all the lines of the
Italian version by heart, but only when I bought the DVD in the 2000s and watched
it in the original language, was I able to fully understand its brilliance.
But,
precisely because I love this film, on the one hand, I was happy for the
sequel and, on the other, I feared that it could disappoint me, after more
than 30 years of waiting (the film is from 1988, but I watched it for the first
time in the early 90s).
Fortunately, this was an unfounded fear.
To prepare
myself properly, a few hours before going to the cinema I rewatched “Beetlejuice”,
also because maybe 15 years had passed since the last time, and it is something
I recommend to anyone who intends to see the sequel. If you have never seen
the first one, you have to watch it, because there are too many connections and
it’s assumed that the viewer knows them. But, even if you have seen it, it’s
not a bad idea to renew that memory a little.
I have to
say that as I watched it again I remembered everything, but fixing the
visual aspect of the film in my memory was essential to enjoying watching the
sequel.
In fact,
less than an hour and a half after finishing watching, I was on my reclining
seat at the cinema and the screening started. The impression I had was of total
continuity between the two works, starting from the screen with the Geffen
logo and the font used for the opening titles that scrolled over the
landscape of Winter River, while the unmistakable soundtrack by Danny
Elfman was played.
Next to
greet the viewer is Winona Ryder, who 36 years later reprises the
character of Lydia Deetz. And it’s her, Lydia. It’s as if it always has
been. She just grew up, as I have, after all.
Another
thing I feared was that I would be overwhelmed by a bittersweet sense of
nostalgia for a time that belonged to a teenage me that no longer exists,
but that wasn’t the case at all.
I felt at
home, because that particular part of me still exists, and I was happy
to know what had happened to Lydia and the other characters in all this time,
as well as to follow them in this new adventure.
What
about Michael Keaton?
Thanks to
the heavy makeup it is almost impossible to notice the difference
between how he was in the 80s and how he is now, and this adds a touch of
“realism” to the whole thing (the quotation marks are a must!).
I can’t
tell you anything about the story, absolutely nothing, because it’s nice to
see it like this. All in all, the trailer only reveals the characters
involved, but not how they move through the story.
I can only
tell you that I remained glued to the screen the whole time, forgetting
who I was and where I was, just like I used to do when I went to the cinema
in the 90s, and that I laughed really hard for most of the 105 minutes
of the film.
And even
more so in the last quarter of an hour, including the sparkling epilogue
(but is the story really over?).
I’m
perfectly aware that in this first viewing I only grasped a minimal part of
all the details that this film is full of. With “Beetlejuice” every
time I rewatched it, even after the fortieth time, I always found something
that I had missed. I expect the same to happen with “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”
and I can’t wait to get my hands on the Blu-ray.
Hopefully,
it comes out soon, as do I hope they release a CD version of the soundtrack
to add it to my collection.
I conclude
by saying that I am really happy to notice that cinema, the real one, still
exists thanks to explosive and crazy minds like Tim Burton’s.
Long live
cinema, long live Tim Burton, and long live Beetlejuice!
But don’t
say it three times, okay?
Or maybe
yes?