Beetlejuice Beetlejuice film review: This goofy gorefest is lacking cultish brilliance of the original

BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE

(12A) 104mins

★★☆☆☆

WAS everything just funnier 40 years ago or is this sequel simply not funny?

It’s a question I pondered several times watching this follow-on to 1988’s cult classic Beetlejuice.

And I’m afraid I concluded the latter.

After a typical intro from director Tim Burton sweeping across land and houses, he finally zooms in on Lydia (Winona Ryder) who we first met as a goth teen with dodgy haircut in the original.

Still sporting the same barnet, she runs her own ghostly TV show and can see the dead.

Her producer and boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux), meanwhile, can see the money potential.

Soon, she is called by her step-mum Delia (Catherine O’Hara) to say her dad has died in a horrific accident.

So the family come together in their original home to deal with his death.

The clan now includes Lydia’s rebellious daughter Astrid (Wednesday’s Jenna Ortega), who has a difficult relationship with her mum.

The family gather at the graveside of dad Charles.

He was played by Jeffrey Jones in the first film.

But the character only appears through illustration and a photograph, as Jones was arrested in 2002 for possession of child abuse images.

This makes it a little strange that the plot to get all the characters to reunite is to mourn his death, when he could have easily been written out of the film with no reference.

After the funeral, Lydia’s life is turned upside down when Beetlejuice comes back, with Michael Keaton, 72, reprising the role and giving it as much energy as he did 36 years ago.

The mischievous demon is on a mission, once again, to make Lydia his wife.

But she has bigger problems to deal with, including getting her daughter back after she accidentally opens a portal to the afterlife and becomes trapped — and dodging her actual wedding to Rory.

There is also a pointless side story running through-out with director Burton’s real-life girlfriend, the wonderful Monica Bellucci, as vampy corpse bride Delores, who only has one line.

Perhaps he just wanted her on set.

The constant rotation of goofiness and gore becomes tiresome without the support of a solid storyline backbone to hold it up, and it shows none of the cultish brilliance it once did.

Let’s hope no one says it three times.

RED ROOMS

(18) 118mins

★★★☆☆

THIS French-language, Canadian psychological thriller is an extremely unsettling exploration into what happens in the most unpalatable recesses of the dark web.

Model Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy) spends most of her time online in front of multiple screens with only a self-programmed ‘smart’ device called Guinevere, to converse with.

Her bitcoin balance is high thanks to a talent for playing online poker and an understanding of the Darknet which enables her obsessive explorations of more distasteful interests.

Alongside Clemetine (Laurie Babin) she becomes obsessed with the trial of serial killer Ludovic Chevalier (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos), even sleeping on the pavement overnight to attend his trial in person each day.

But when her fascination with his case blurs with his criminal realities and she seeks to uncover the missing video of one of his murdered teenage victims all moral boundaries slip by the wayside.

Tense and terrifying, aided by sharp camera work, director Pascal Plante’s portrayal of a frightening fixation is utterly gripping.

LAURA STOTT

FIREBRAND

(15) 120mins

★★★★☆

IT’S hard not to watch this and wonder, “Is Jude Law really such a big a***?”.

The answer, surprisingly, is probably not.

For two reasons.

When viewers of this drama about Henry VIII’s sixth wife see the king’s naked backside thrusting at Katherine Parr, I suspect the banquet-sized buttocks are a stunt double for slender Law.

The other reason is that Law proves he can act, by playing England’s most notorious monarch as a charismatic psycho.

It helps that he is working alongside excellent Alicia Vikander, as the feisty Parr.

But most credit should go to director Karim Aïnouz who transforms a story of religious intrigue into a claustrophobic thriller.

Henry is essentially a serial killer and Katherine his next victim.

Even though every school pupil is taught what happens to Henry’s final bride, there is a sense of tension about her fate.

A strong supporting cast, including Eddie Marsan and Sam Riley as the conniving Seymour brothers, helps ramp up the sense of fear.

Be warned, though, this highly fictionalised account will upset some historians.

GRANT ROLLINGS