The rise and fall of Michael Keaten

Rating: 8/10 (22 November 2006)

Hello moviegoers! I must give the master of macabre, Tim Burton, for developing his style in cinema of humorous and yet creepily Gothic and adult orientated fairy tales. To me I consider it to be his second "real" film (Vincent being the first, Pee Wee's for kicks) in which he has a trio of actors, writers, and producers. At the time this idea was hatched Larry Wilson (originally to write Roman Dirge's "Lenore") with the basic half-a'd plot and Michael McDowell (suprisingly no relation to Malcolm) with the screenplay, looking for the right visionary to direct it. Of course, this was before Tim Burton re-invented Beetle Juice and perhaps even re-creating or resurrecting him. They tried Wes Craven, who at the time was in the process of writing (but not directing) another crappy Nightmare on elm street sequel, so he was out of the picture there. Though even if Wes Craven had done the film there would be bleakness and not fun like Burton made it (however, I would have liked to see this film have a solid R rating including violence, language and sexuality) creative differences also struck and Burton was given the idea. Reading the script it perhaps possessed him to take it. Thus, his brilliance came through and made Beetle Juice look a bit less oh, I don't know, "sheety". The plot (taken from IMDb):
This is the story of Adam and Barbara who live in a beautiful house in New England. One day while driving home they are involved in a terrible auto accident. They manage to walk home only to discover later that they have died and now haunt their house. When their house is purchased by an out of state family, they feel their home is threatened by the over-the-top artists wife and real-estate idea-man husband. Their only relief is the Gothic daughter of the family. Their attempts at scaring the family out of the house are ignored or laughed at. Finally they fall to the temptation to use the people-exorcist Beetle Juice. When they find his tactics too dangerous, they attempt to contain him and save the family they were trying to boot.
It cannot be explained truly well but that is what it is, the storyline is good and eccentric and the script may as well be the same. The direction looks, well, 'darkly colourful' and intriguing.
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Let's skip to the actual review, shall we? Well the plot is great but the screenplay is seemingly half-written with no beginning and no ending, just bits and pieces between that make a film. It's dark, fun, but I'd like to discuss the ending. The ending, which involves the family (of ghosts) with Winona Ryder, who seems to be "happy" and dramatically changed. Though it's not dramatic, but crappy and just there to anger certain people such as myself off, however, Burton did mention that that wasn't the intention. Beetle Juice also has his head shrunken once he's in the IRS-like waiting room in the land of the dead (which, I'd like to mention, the underworld resembling an IRS office was quite brilliant) and there happens to be a half-naked cannibal sitting next to him. Then the 'perfect' family are possessed by music and have to sing calypso. I know, it sounds f***** up but I'm not kidding. The ending is one of the worst in cinematic history and if there is EVER an alternate ending I'd buy it faster then it would take me to get to the store in general. Do not have this turn you down, for Tim Burton mentioned in the book "Burton on Burton" that it had no ending at all. I'm not saying it's a terrible film, but the execution of it didn't make the movie. Despite this, I think this film should be remembered for what it did to Burton's career, showing his style of Gothic and twisted fairy tales with macabre elements or how it launched its own great animated television series (along with The Addams Family) and merchandise as well as its cult status, instead of having such a disappointing ending. So I recommend this film truly and even if you have not seen a Burton film at all I think you should see this, despite the ending this is one of my favourite films and Tim Burton is one of my personal favourite directors. Oh yes, and as for the title: this marked the only notably good role of Michael Keaton (besides Batman) everything else in his career was a waste.