ash and I went to the drive-in to watch Beetlejuice Beetlejuice! It was fun, but I'm gonna complain about it:
Here are a list of plots in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) (spoilers!)
-Lydia Deetz wants to repair her broken relationship with her daughter, Astrid
-Lydia Deetz's manager, Rory, scams Lydia into getting engaged to him
-Astrid falls in love with a ghost boy who tricks her into giving him her life
-Obviously Lydia has to try to save Astrid, in the process promising Beetlejuice that she'll marry him
-Beetlejuice's ex-wife, Delores, is looking for him because she wants to suck out his soul
-Wolf Jackson is a detective looking for all of Beetlejuice, Delores, Astrid, and Lydia, each for different reasons
-Delia Deetz dies and goes looking for Charles Deetz (also dead as of the beginning of the movie) in the afterlife, to get his help to stop being dead
-Beetlejuice wants to marry Lydia, for one of: "he's obsessed with her and genuinely wants to marry her", "marrying her will let him escape the afterlife somehow", "marrying her will stop his ex-wife from coming after him for some reason"
These are resolved by (spoilers!!)
-When Astrid's ghost boy tries to get his passport stamped to make the life-exchange permanent, Beetlejuice opens a trap-door beneath him that drops him into (presumably) Hell, he is never seen or heard from again
-After a song and dance number at the wedding (first between Lydia and Rory, then Lydia and Beetlejuice), Astrid summons a sand worm which eats Delores and Rory, then leaves
-Astrid declares the marriage contract between Lydia and Beetlejuice null and void, due to Reasons
-Lydia says Beetlejuice's name three times, he does not try to stop her, and he leaves
-Because all the ghosts have left, Wolf Jackson also leaves
-Delia and Charles find each other and move on to the afterlife (distinct from the limbo seen in both movies), despite saying that they'll hang around and 'haunt' Lydia and Astrid, which is implied to be impossible to do once they've moved on (but is probably how Lydia and Astrid would actually have wanted things so I guess that's fine)
-The rest of the movie is a prolonged dream sequence twist, so we don't actually know if Lydia and Astrid have repaired their relationship but we can presume it to be likely
Nothing ties together, the ending just kind of happens, none of the ex-wife stuff needed to be there at all. None of the fiance stuff needed to be there. A lot was clearly just put into the movie to be references back to the first one. I also found the effects kind of lackluster, there was a lot of meh CGI and the practical effects that were there felt a bit cheap, often. Which is disappointing since honestly most of the reason to see the first one is the effects. But the performances were largely good, and there's definitely a good story in there among the chaff. And the song and dance number was very funny, despite clearly being there to cash in on the dayo bit from the first one -- it was worth cashing in. I did not get bored during it. It's just such a disappointing ending that it really sours my opinion on the movie as a whole, because if you wanted to keep all of that then it's definitely possible to tie it all together at the end and give a satisfying ending! But they didn't, and it wasn't, and that's all not even talking about the dream sequence twist.
(just gonna note that none of the writers for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice had anything to do with the first movie)
(huh, also that apparently the credits have it Betelgeuse in the first and Beetlejuice in the second)
There was also a guy in a car next to us who spent too much time yelling at someone over his phone, and also yelling at a crying child in his car, something about wanting to know if his car would start via fob if his battery stopped working? Like a, figure all that out before you go to a drive in, b, do it not right next to other people at the drive in who are trying to watch a movie, c, stop yelling at your fucking kid. Didn't turn out to be an issue I guess because he sure got his car working fine for the last third of the movie, though that didn't stop him from continuing to yell about things from time to time! He also drove out fine after the movie ended.
Before the movie we got dinner at a little hamburger place that had a bunch of shake options, so ash got a pineapple shake and I got a butterfinger shake. Both were good! I have saved my hamburger for now, after the movie, but also ate popcorn I brought with us and some fries.
Tomorrow I'm gonna sweep and vacuum in my room, and ash and I have plans to watch the first Beetlejuice, because he doesn't remember much of it and it's a good movie. Tonight I will chill and video game unti bed, and hopefully go to bed early enough to actually get enough sleep for once