Creative and entertaining for the most part

Rating: 7/10 (11 October 2014)

Beetlejuice is an extremely morbid but creative and funny movie made by Tim Burton and staring Winona Ryder and Micheal Keaton. It's definitely not for everyone, and a vast majority of its fans are emo and goth teenagers who like it just because it is weird without paying much thought to the story itself, but it has some great acting and soundtrack, a good use of film techniques, and a good script.
Adam and Barbra are a happy couple living in a charming if not creepy house in the country. While driving home one day they swerve to avoid a dog and their car falls off a covered bridge and into a river, and it isn't long before they discover that they're ghosts. After a while the ghost life is alright, and they also discover the Neitherworld, a strange but surprisingly professional land of the dead. However, soon the Deetz family moves in and wants to change everything. The only one who can see Adam and Barbra is the Deetz' goth daughter, Lydia. Adam and Barbra soon find themselves relying on a "bio-exorcist" to be rid of the humans, but is he helpful, or harmful? I saw this as a kid and have viewed it once or twice a year; the soundtrack is wonderful, the acting is great, and, let's face it, this certainly is an original story, albeit very dark at times.
My problem with the movie was Lydia's stereotypical goth personality. It is way overdone, to the point where it's annoying and fake and you want to shout, "okay, she's a goth, she likes weird stuff, we get the point, can we move on with the film?" Winona Ryder does do a very good acting job, but her character was just another spoiled, angst-ridden kid who think her life is worse off than everybody else's. Her parents offer to build her a darkroom for crying out loud! I wish I had one so that I could stop having to send my photos off to Wal-Mart's inept photo lab. Her reply to her parents' offer is, "my whole life is a dark room, one big dark room". They buy her Cantonese food - "I'm planning to have a stroke from the MSG". She's spoiled, self-entitled, self-pitying, whiny and annoying. Though her character improves slightly as the film goes on, she still continues to spout gothy lines left and right, and it's just ridiculous. I mean come on, wearing a black lace veil like the ones that widows wear to funerals, to the dinner table? Saying that her goth attitude is the reason she can see ghosts? It's not cool, it's not funny, it's not cute, it's just silly and stupid. It's too bad, because it nearly overclouds Ryder's excellent acting job.
Beetlejuice's character was played very well, as was the role of well-meaning but annoying Delia Deetz. It's a Tim Burton movie so you'll recognize his style within the first fifteen minutes or so.
Check out Beetlejuice, it's pretty good (although my favorite Tim Burton film is Edward Scissorhands). It was also adapted to a cartoon TV series for kids that you might want to see as well.