Has Burton's style all over it - it's a shame that the script is poor and there are few laughs to be found

Rating: 2/10 (8 July 2019)

Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) are both killed in a car crash, but return as ghosts in their family home. After their deaths, their house gets sold and a new family move in; mum Delia (Catherine O'Hara) dad Charles (Jeffrey Jones) and daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder). The Maitlands do not like this family and object to some of their plans for the home and try to drive the family out of the home by employing scare tactics. When this fails, they decide to enlist the help of bio-exorcist Betelguese (Michael Keaton), but Betelgeuse proves to be out of control and the Maitlands soon begin to regret asking him for help...
Beetlejuice actually starts out as an OK film; the Maitlands are both likeable enough (if a tad icky) and the idea of them trying to scare the living away from their home in a farcical way certainly sounds funny; sort of like an amusing take on The Poltergeist or Amityville Horror. Regrettably though, for me this just didn't work. Like I say, Baldwin and Davis are likeable enough and do OK in their respective roles, but the script is poor and gives them no amusing lines and not a great deal to work with. This also extends to most of the family who move into the house; the likes of O'Hara and Jones are capable actors, but in Beetlejuice their contributions are barely memorable and add nothing to the film. Shaddix seems to just be playing Associate Bob from Demolition Man again. Winona Ryder's character is explored better than the other characters, but her quirky macabre weirdness should have been used better and I was disappointed that she wasn't given any good lines either.
So we've established that the script is rubbish and the story (such as it is) is rather thin, but Burton still has 2 things up his sleeve; the first is Michael Keaton and the second is the visuals. In this context, the former is certainly energetic and occasionally amusing, but he's only in the picture for about a fifth of the running time which would mean he would need to be a strong presence and side-splittingly funny to make up for the shortfall elsewhere in the film; the truth is that he isn't and I think the only scene involving Betelgeuse that I actually found slightly amusing was the scene where they were all inside the model. The visuals are indeed bright and colourful, but once again it feels like Burton's outlandish visuals are merely there to detract from all of the other lesser qualities of the film creating a style over substance feel (that being said the visuals now look somewhat tacky, but hey this film was made 30 years ago so again this perhaps should be taken in context as well).
It's sad really because I think Tim Burton was definitely the right man to direct this film and perhaps that's the reason this film has a cult following, but unless you purely watch films to look at the scenery then there is little point in wasting your time here.